thinking more innocent thoughts, I would be assailed by images of dark, curled hair and tumescent flesh, never-before-seen flesh that, nevertheless, throbbed with heat and reeked of male sweat. It was all that I could do to keep myself from crying out with the thought, which was less thought than sensation—a brute, black force that made my knees clamp together, my mind close shut.
M Y CASE wasn’t helped by the fact that there were reminders of him everywhere. The Molière play that we read for French class, in which a man of forty-two plotted to marry his ward, a girl of seventeen. Headlines over breakfast: a history teacher in Vermont; a music teacher in Kentucky. The sight of the other English teachers, alone: grizzled Mr. Wolfstein; fat Mrs. Poplar; even that detested hussy, Miss Kelsen.
He was sociable, oh so sociable. I had seen him bounding alongside Mr. Wolfstein, an excited pup next to the wolfish old man. He was adored and caressed by Mrs. Poplar, a fond and frumpy mother who, when I thought about it, couldn’t have been more than five years his senior. Naturally, he was flirtatious with Miss Kelsen. Yet as bitterly as I looked upon the young woman’s dimpled laughter, the older man’s murmured quips and upturned, explanatory palms, I was aware of his ways. He was an incurable flirt.
He flirted with seniors, juniors, sophomores, freshmen; with female teachers and librarians. Outside of work, I was sure he was the sort of man who struck up conversations with waitresses, shop girls, and stray women whom he saw waiting at bus stops or on park benches. One art lesson, while burrowing in the supplies closet for pastels, I was startled from my task by what sounded like his sonorous voice blustering into the room. “Flowers for milady,” he greeted Ms. Faber, a snaggle-toothed woman with a flesh-colored mole on her left cheek. I wasn’t thinking about her appearance then, however; the shock of his voice had brought on graver concerns, as I sent the entire tin of pastels (located at last) crashing down, along with various brushes, twigs, hard erasers, and the good willow charcoals.
“Jeez, Laurel, stop dropping things!” Marcelle cackled across the room.
I bent down demurely to clear up the mess, aided by a couple of nearby handmaids. He didn’t come to my service, but stayed standing with Ms. Faber, arms crossed and smiling (smirking?) at the proceedings. He was wearing his corduroys with the chocolate brown sweater, which brought out the chestnut tones in his hair. On my down-headed walk back to the communal table, I saw that he had placed a vase of amaryllises on Ms. Faber’s desk.
Sitting down, I didn’t look at him—simply smiled at Marcelle’s jibes and piled my hair up, sticking it in place with a pencil. He continued speaking to Ms. Faber, asking if she knew the myth of Amaryllis, the white-clad girl who had stabbed herself repeatedly in the heart to make a bloody flower for her beloved. “Do we have English today, sir?” Marcelle interrupted. We did.
Ms. Faber thanked him for the flowers, which we were to begin drawing that lesson. It seemed nothing more would pass between us. On his way out of the studio, however, Mr. Steadman stooped by my desk, retrieving something from the speckled vinyl floor. “You’ll be needing this,” he smiled slyly, placing a red pastel before me.
I T WOULD be interesting to linger for a while in the art studio, a spacious annex of paneled windows and cool, northern light. It would be interesting to linger over the flowers drawn by each girl, the deviations of mind and body that they suggested.
Marcelle’s flower, for instance, was clear and bright, somewhat one-dimensional. Jade van Dam’s was green-seeded, green-centered, in grading shades of pink rather than true red: intricate yet dispassionate. Winifred Maddock’s was huge, shapeless, and somehow sad: the overblown bloom of a corpulent, side-burned virgin.
As for mine: raw and hungry and beginning
M Y CASE wasn’t helped by the fact that there were reminders of him everywhere. The Molière play that we read for French class, in which a man of forty-two plotted to marry his ward, a girl of seventeen. Headlines over breakfast: a history teacher in Vermont; a music teacher in Kentucky. The sight of the other English teachers, alone: grizzled Mr. Wolfstein; fat Mrs. Poplar; even that detested hussy, Miss Kelsen.
He was sociable, oh so sociable. I had seen him bounding alongside Mr. Wolfstein, an excited pup next to the wolfish old man. He was adored and caressed by Mrs. Poplar, a fond and frumpy mother who, when I thought about it, couldn’t have been more than five years his senior. Naturally, he was flirtatious with Miss Kelsen. Yet as bitterly as I looked upon the young woman’s dimpled laughter, the older man’s murmured quips and upturned, explanatory palms, I was aware of his ways. He was an incurable flirt.
He flirted with seniors, juniors, sophomores, freshmen; with female teachers and librarians. Outside of work, I was sure he was the sort of man who struck up conversations with waitresses, shop girls, and stray women whom he saw waiting at bus stops or on park benches. One art lesson, while burrowing in the supplies closet for pastels, I was startled from my task by what sounded like his sonorous voice blustering into the room. “Flowers for milady,” he greeted Ms. Faber, a snaggle-toothed woman with a flesh-colored mole on her left cheek. I wasn’t thinking about her appearance then, however; the shock of his voice had brought on graver concerns, as I sent the entire tin of pastels (located at last) crashing down, along with various brushes, twigs, hard erasers, and the good willow charcoals.
“Jeez, Laurel, stop dropping things!” Marcelle cackled across the room.
I bent down demurely to clear up the mess, aided by a couple of nearby handmaids. He didn’t come to my service, but stayed standing with Ms. Faber, arms crossed and smiling (smirking?) at the proceedings. He was wearing his corduroys with the chocolate brown sweater, which brought out the chestnut tones in his hair. On my down-headed walk back to the communal table, I saw that he had placed a vase of amaryllises on Ms. Faber’s desk.
Sitting down, I didn’t look at him—simply smiled at Marcelle’s jibes and piled my hair up, sticking it in place with a pencil. He continued speaking to Ms. Faber, asking if she knew the myth of Amaryllis, the white-clad girl who had stabbed herself repeatedly in the heart to make a bloody flower for her beloved. “Do we have English today, sir?” Marcelle interrupted. We did.
Ms. Faber thanked him for the flowers, which we were to begin drawing that lesson. It seemed nothing more would pass between us. On his way out of the studio, however, Mr. Steadman stooped by my desk, retrieving something from the speckled vinyl floor. “You’ll be needing this,” he smiled slyly, placing a red pastel before me.
I T WOULD be interesting to linger for a while in the art studio, a spacious annex of paneled windows and cool, northern light. It would be interesting to linger over the flowers drawn by each girl, the deviations of mind and body that they suggested.
Marcelle’s flower, for instance, was clear and bright, somewhat one-dimensional. Jade van Dam’s was green-seeded, green-centered, in grading shades of pink rather than true red: intricate yet dispassionate. Winifred Maddock’s was huge, shapeless, and somehow sad: the overblown bloom of a corpulent, side-burned virgin.
As for mine: raw and hungry and beginning
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