Hot For Teacher, Part Four (the end)

By Czolgolz

[email protected]

for Phantom Rochelle

It took me all night to load my truck. All the tricks are broken down and stowed in the back: the wringer, the saw box, mismade, and several others. It’s going to be a long drive, and cramped. But it’s time I leave this town.

I just graduated high school. I have no family, and not really any friends. When I drive out of here today, I probably won’t be back. No regrets, there’s nothing I’ll miss here, except...

Mrs. Snow. My old teacher. Mrs. Snow with her tight bun, her bland clothes, and her disapproving eyes.

Mrs. Snow, who shared magical experiences with me. The woman who let me do things to her things that few women ever experienced. The woman who made a man out of me.

I offered to take her with me. She doesn’t have a lot left in this town, and I thought she’d prefer life on the road to rotting here. But she turned me down. Said she couldn’t leave her job, and that the age difference was too much for her.

Stupid me, I thought things like that didn’t matter when you were in...

It’s dumb to think about that.

Right now, I need to get out of town. I’ve picked up my last supplies at Target. My truck is parked in the lot. I’m just going to run next door to McDonalds for a bite, then hit the road.

The line is long, a bunch of kids from my high school are ahead of me. We don’t acknowledge each other. Some of them are laughing and elbowing each other, pointing toward the back. It’s not until it’s my turn that I see what the joke is.

“I’ll have a Big Mac and...”

Then I notice the woman working the fryer. I can see her profile. She’s crammed into the wretchedly colorful McD uniform. Her hair is tucked up under the cap. Her auburn hair.

It’s Mrs. Snow. She’s working here. In this greasy fast food restaurant.

Why? I know her ex cleaned her out in the divorce, but is money really that tight? And if it is, why doesn’t she just teacher summer school or something?

As I collect my order, I’m tempted to shout out to her, but something tells me she doesn’t want to be seen. I sit in a booth, wondering if I should approach her or what? She hasn’t answered my texts. This may be my last chance.

A guy in a manager’s uniform storms out of the bathroom. I recognize him. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He yanks open the door to the kitchen and bellows out Mrs. Snow’s first name.

“Someone left a mess in the men’s room. Get out here and clean it up. Yes, now!”

I’m pretty sure Mrs. Snow used to be his teacher.

She soon appears, pushing a mop and bucket. I don’t have time to hide. She sees me.

She winces. I wave, half-heartedly.

Soon, she’s gone into the men’s room.

My God, what has brought her to this?

She passes by my table when she returns. “My break’s in half an hour. Meet me in the parking lot.”

She returns to the kitchen.

*

I pace nervously outside until Mrs. Snow comes out. She smiles weakly at me, and I get my first close look at her.

She’s lost weight since I last saw her, and that’s not a good thing. She’s scrawnier, like she’s not been eating. The fryer grease hasn’t done much for her complexion, and she has dark circles under her eyes. Her uniform is soaked through with sweat.

“Mrs. Snow...” I begin.

“Um, let’s talk in private, Leon.” She points to the adjoining Target parking lot.

Confused, I follow her to a small RV trailer. She unlocks the door and ushers me inside.

All my hopes that she’s working fast food to pay for this vehicle crumble when I see the interior. It’s crammed with various boxes and racks of clothes. I notice a familiar black dress, wrapped in plastic.

All of Mrs. Snow’s things. She’s living in an RV now.

“Welcome to my home,” she says sadly.

I turn to my old teacher. “Mrs. Snow, what..what happened?”

She moves some boxes off a bench and invites me to sit next to her. “I lost my job, Leon. Couldn’t keep up on my rent.”

“Lost your...it wasn’t because of...you know?” She always worried that someone would find out what had gone on between us.

“Hmm? Oh, no. Thanks for your concern, but enrollment’s down in the district. They decided to let a few teachers go.” She smiles sadly. “Last hired, first fired.”

“But don’t you have, like...”

“Tenure? That kicks in after six years. I’ve been with the district for five. I tried to find a job in another school, but things are rough all over. Everyone’s cutting staff.”

I’m horrified. Mrs. Snow is like the best teacher in the world. Of course I may be biased.

“So I’m living here until something better comes along. I should be back on my feet by next school year. Provided the department store doesn’t have my home towed away.”

This is terrible! This is awful! This is...

Great.

I try to put my arm around her, but she leans away. “Mrs. Snow, I asked you before to come with me. Be my assistant. We can travel the country, and have all kinds of adventures. You’ve got no job, no home. I can hitch this thing to the back of my truck. So c’mon, what do you say?”

She doesn’t look at me. “Same as last time, Leon. No.”

I’m more than a little hurt. “I thought you and I had something.”

Just the hint of a smile. “Something special.”

“Then why is this even a decision? If we both...care about each other, why shouldn’t we be together?”

She stands. I think she wants to pace, but there’s no room. “Leon, there’s more than a twenty year age difference.”

This shit again. “So? So what if I’m young? C’mon, you have to kind of like the idea of having a boyfriend my age.”

She takes off her fast food cap and tosses it on a stack of boxes. “Yes, Leon, there are certainly...advantages to someone as young as you. I’d be a lucky woman. But what’s in it for you?”

“Are you kidding me? You! You’re what I want. You’re what I need.” I try to wrap my arms around her neck, but she shrugs me off.

“Please, Leon. You’re still a boy. This is all exciting for you, but do you really think you can’t do better? When we go out, people will think I’m your mother. And I’ve seen the way the girls at school used to look at you. I know you’d never cheat on me, but in a couple of years when you’re in your twenties and young women are coming on to you all the time...and then you have to come home to a wreck like me, who’s not firm, not skinny, and doesn’t have half your energy. You’d resent me. You’d realize that you settled.”

If I wasn’t a guest in her home, I’d break something. “Being with you is not settling.”

She faces me, and I see tears running down her face. “When you turn thirty, I’ll be in my fifties. And when you’re forty-five, still virile and dashing, I’ll be nearly seventy. It won’t work. I’d ruin your life.”

“Mrs. Snow, please...”

She shakes her head. “I wasted my youth, trying to make someone happy. Someone who didn’t deserve it. Don’t waste your life, Leon.”

“But...”

“Go. Please. My break’s almost over. I can’t see you anymore.”

So that’s what it comes down to. She won’t start a new life with me because she’s afraid I’ll end up regretting it.

“So is this really goodbye?”

She nods, biting her lip. I can tell she’s barely keeping it together.

“Mrs. Snow, could I have a kiss before I go?”

She smiles through her tears. “Of course, Kiddo.”

I take her face in my hands and memorize the beautiful sight: the lightly freckled cheeks, the moist, blue eyes, the quivering smile.

We kiss.

A couple of seconds later, I’m holding a very surprised looking rabbit in my hands.

“Sorry, Mrs. Snow,” I say to the animal. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.

Kicking aside the crumpled McDonald’s uniform on the floor, I poke around until I find an empty cardboard box. I place my teacher inside.

*

It takes me a while to hook the trailer up to my truck, but I succeed. With Mrs. Snow in a box on the passenger seat, I drive all day and into the night. We’re two states away when I pull into a motel parking lot.

After checking in, I sneak Mrs. Snow into our room (they have a no pets policy). I also bring her some pajamas I found in her trailer.

I set the rabbit Mrs. Snow in the bathroom and leave the PJs on the sink. I then leave and closes the door. Alone in the room, I say a few words. There’s a flash of light from the bathroom and I hear Mrs. Snow gasp.

She joins me in a few minutes, now dressed. Damn, she looks irritated.

“So would you care to explain this, Leon?” she asks, her arms folded.

“Mrs. Snow, I know what you said earlier...”

“Not that.” She turns around and lowers her pants. I gulp. There, just above her butt, is a fluffy, white tail.

“Oh, uh, give it a few hours, it’ll go away.”

She pulls her pants up, seemingly satisfied. Inside, I’m panicking. That should not have happened. I have a horrible feeling my teacher may be wearing that tail for the rest of her life.

Her ears are a little bigger too.

“So did you think that you could just kidnap me, Leon? That you know what I want better than I do?”

I have to phrase this very carefully. “I guess I don’t know what you want. But I know what you don’t want. You don’t want to spend the next year flipping burgers, working for your former students. You don’t want to live in a trailer. And I don’t think you want to start over in another district next year.”

She won’t look me in the eye. “Of course I don’t want that...”

I step closer. “And I also think you enjoyed being my assistant. I think you liked getting sawed in half and wringered.”

She smiles a little. “Well, those were rather intense experiences.”

“And I think...no, I know that you enjoyed our time together. It wasn’t just magic, and it wasn’t just sex. Tell me I’m wrong.”

She finally looks up. “Of course you’re not wrong.”

“So can we get over this whole stupid age thing? You told me you wasted your youth. Well I don’t want to waste mine, thinking about the girl I left behind. I’m never going to find an assistant who’d live up to you. I’m never going to find someone I enjoy travelling with as much. Mrs. Snow, I think you and I have something wonderful. I think you feel the same way.”

“Leon...” She pauses. “We shouldn’t. We can’t...”

I step forward and gently take her hand. “Why not? Take a trip with me. Just for a little bit, say twenty years. See if it works out.”

She’s holding my hand and forcing back a smile. “God, Leon, I want to. I so want to.”

I gently press my lips to hers. We’re kissing. We’re alone in a motel room, three hundred miles from home, and we’re kissing. I’ve done it. I’ve won her over.

But then my teacher stops. She pulls away. She stares at me intensely.

“Mrs. Snow?”

“Make me young again!” she almost screams.

“What?”

She’s grinning, but it’s kind of disturbing. “You turned me into a rabbit, right? Well, make me young again! Nineteen, twenty.” She grabs my shirt. “I know you can do it, Leon! Make me a young woman again. Then nothing can stand in our way!”

She’s smiling so wildly that it breaks my heart to answer her.

“I can’t.”

Her face falls. “But...the rabbit thing.”

I sigh. “Well, I could. I could make you younger. But only for a day or so. It takes concentration. Once I fall asleep, you’d revert back. And I wouldn’t be able to do it again for a week or so. It’s draining.”

Her lip quivers. She was counting on this. I touch her chin.

“Mrs. Snow, even if I could, I wouldn’t. I don’t want some college age girl. I want you. I think your body is perfect as is. You’re the one that I want, exactly like you are.”

I feel her body tremble.

“There’s a thousand fast food jobs out there. But what we have...that only happens once.”

“Damn you, Kiddo.”

We kiss.

*

Much later, we lay in bed together. Mrs. Snow is asleep, her arms wrapped tightly around me. Her body is so warm and soft, I don’t want to get out of bed. But I gently disentangle myself, and get up.

She’s so adorable stretched out like that, with her bare, freckled back and the way her new tail twitches when she sleeps. She trusts me so much. I feel so guilty for what’s about to happen. For the lies I told her. For what I’m about to do.

I raise a hand. I speak some words.

The resulting power causes me to black out. I come to a few seconds later on the carpet. My body feels like it’s been brutally pummeled after I ran a full marathon. I’m in pain, and I can barely move.

But I force myself to an upright position. I have to see the results. I manage to focus, to see Mrs. Snow.

She hasn’t changed a bit. She looks absolutely identical. She didn’t even wake up.

But she is now a week younger.

Just one week. That’s all I can manage.

But I’ll do it to her again next week. And the week after that.

I wonder how long it will take Mrs. Snow to realize that she’s not aging. Five years? Ten? I’ll have to explain myself one day.

But for now, she won’t grow older. And I’ll age normally. In about twelve years I’ll be thirty and she’ll still be forty. The age difference won’t be that much anymore. And women live longer than men.

I’ll let her start aging again then. We can grow old together.

It takes reserves of strength I didn’t know I had, but I manage to crawl into bed with her. She groans in her sleep and throws an arm around me, just as I pass out.

*

I awake to find Mrs. Snow staring down at me. For the first time since I’ve know her, her hair hangs down around her shoulders. She’s grinning.

“I thought it was us old people who needed naps,” she taunts.

I can’t tell her why I’m so wiped. “Hey, I drove for hours yesterday.”

I try to sit up, but she gently pushes me back. “You rest, honey. We have all the time in the world. Speaking of which, what’s the plan? When do I learn the act?”

I lie back, gratefully. “We’re not booked for another week or so. Mostly casinos and small venues. I wish I could do more.”

“You’ve done plenty.”

I smile. “As for the act, we’ll develop it together. Tomorrow we’ll go shopping for whatever you need. A tiny bikini, for starters.”

She looks horrified. “Leon, I can’t go up on stage dressed like that!”

I chuckle. “I figured you’d wear that black dress on stage, if you don’t mind. You’ll put on  the bikini when we get back to the hotel at night.”

She rolls her eyes. “Boys. Only one thing on their mind.”

We kiss for a long time. Still too weak to sit up, I reach up and run my fingers through her long, auburn hair.

“I love you, Mrs. Snow.”

She suddenly frowns, not happy at all. Too soon?

“Leon,” she snaps. “I just agreed to travel with you indefinitely. I’ll dress however you want me to. I’ll climb into any box you tell me to, and I won’t ask why. You know how ticklish I am, and I’ll still let you tie me up.”

Where’s she going with this? “So...?”

“So stop calling me Mrs. Snow like you’re some student asking to use the bathroom!”

I swallow. It’s funny, I’ve sawed her in half, flattened her, rearranged her body, turned her into a rabbit, essentially kidnapped her, and given her a permanent tail. Not to mention kissed every square inch of her body.

But calling her by her first name? I feel like I’m crossing a line.

“I love you...Rochelle.”

I’m rewarded with her beautiful smile. “I love you, Leon.”

I start to move, but she stops me. “No, stay like you are.” She straddles me, with predictable physical results.

“Leon, do you have any more tricks up your sleeve?”

I’m rather distracted, but I nod.

“Something exciting? Something I’ll enjoy?”

I groan with pleasure. “Rochelle, trust me, you’re going to completely lose your head.”

(the end)