"I didn't do anything!"
"Not much, you didn't! I know what you was doin' with that dyke teacher! By now, I guess everyone in town knows!"
"Lies, all lies!"
"Who're you tryin' to convince – me, or yourself?"
Total disaster had fallen upon Kelly – and her lover, Laurel.
It was a simple mistake, but one which had been ruinous to both of them.
It happened on Monday, after school, when the students had all gone home.
Kelly had joined Laurel in the classroom where she taught her English classes. The classroom had been empty, with rows of deserted desks.
Laurel was just packing up, to leave for the day.
The classroom door was closed… but, unfortunately, not locked.
That day, Kelly looked especially pretty.
She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a long luxuriant mane of blonde hair.
She wore a pretty pink blouse and a plaid skirt and pink knee socks.
So fresh-faced, young and lovely did she look, that Kelly excited Laurel to give her a little kiss in the empty classroom.
She had intended to give Kelly a chaste little deck on the cheek, but Kelly had turned her head at the last instant.
Causing Laurel's red lips to press Kelly's pink puckered lips.
Sexual electricity sparked when the kissing lips met.
Laurel embraced Kelly, who pressed up against her.
Kelly opened her mouth, accepting with delight Laurel's probing tongue.
Which is just how Hugo the custodian discovered them, when he blundered into the room as part of his daily routine.
He was going to sweep up and clean out the waste baskets, his usual tasks.
Ordinarily, he started on the other side of the school building, but just before the school day ended, somebody had gotten sick on the stairs.
He had cleaned it up, and decided to clean up the rooms starting at this end.
Which is how he came upon a teacher kissing a student.
That was bad enough – an offense for which the teacher could and would be fired!
But making it infinitely worse was the fact that teacher and student were of the same sex!
The world turned upside-down and toppled on Kelly and Laurel.
Nightmare time!
Hugo had hurried away, hastening to the principal's office to report what he had seen, in graphic detail.
It was only a kiss – but a passionate one, between teacher and girl.
One kiss which was enough to ruin both Kelly and Laurel.
The principal called Kelly into his office first thing the following morning. Kelly was so ill, she thought she would vomit, or faint.
Infinitely worse, was the fact that the principal had summoned her parent.
Since Mom was away in Florida, trying vainly to recover her shattered health, that left Dan Waxer, her step-father, to be called in.
The scandal had already swept the school, becoming known to faculty and student body alike – indeed, no one talked of anything else!
Kelly squirmed under the stares of others – some leered at her, some looked at her with disgust, some in amazement.
Up to then, Kelly had seemed only to be an all-American beauty, as normal as could be, a typical healthy teenager.
She rarely dated, and had no steady boyfriends, a fact which now made sense in light of her exposed lesbianism.
She felt like a leper.
But her worse fears were, not for herself, but for Laurel.
Kelly was in big trouble, but Laurel was really on the hot spot.
Laurel was liable for criminal prosecution for corrupting the morals of a minor. Kelly swore she would never testify, never!
But there would be no need to, not with the way the authorities had things rigged.
The principal, the Board of Ed, did not want a big scandal, which would of course result if such a case should come to trial.
So, there would be no trial – if Laurel played ball.
No criminal charges would be lodged against the teacher, provided she submitted her resignation, effective immediately.
And left town, immediately.
Should she try to contact. Kelly, even by phone, Laurel would be arrested, charged, and brought to trial.
These facts Kelly learned during her own ordeal in the principal's office, when that man informed Dan Waxer about the scandal.
Kelly was put on suspension, pending a final decision as to whether an immoral influence such as she would be readmitted to school.
Her punishment really began when she returned home.
She had been sent to her room by Dan Waxer, who was in an ill-disguised state of glee at the dramatic turn of events.
Long had Kelly's aloofness and disdain for him rankled. He had ached for a chance to turn the tables on her, and put her in her place.
The discovery of his teen step-daughter's lesbian tendencies was just what the doctor ordered, where Dan Waxer was concerned.
Sobbing in her room, Kelly had been puzzled by the sounds of the electric drill and hammering at the attic door.
This was when Dan Waxer installed the lock on the attic door.
He came for her, sawdust covering him, plastered down against his sweaty form.
When Kelly resisted him, he struck her.
She was shocked beyond belief.
Never before had she been struck in anger!
Dan Waxer manhandled the stunned teen, hustling her out of her bedroom and up into the attic, where he had set up the cot.
He tossed Kelly down to the hard floor, where she crouched, sobbing.
"What are you doing?!"
"You ain't fit to associate with decent folks, you little dyke!"
Dan Waxer was loving his triumph over this insolent, haughty teen lovely.
"Yeah, you're gonna stay cooped up here until you've learned your lesson!"
And Kelly had been locked up, imprisoned in the attic room.
At first, she was hysterical.
She pounded the attic door until her fists were raw, until her eyes were red from weeping, until she slumped in defeat on the stairs.
Tuesday day and Tuesday night, she had been penned up in the attic.
Dan Waxer brought her meals on a tray – thin, meagre fare of canned soup barely heated, and baloney sandwiches on doughy white bread.
Even worse, she had gotten hungry enough to eat them.
All day Wednesday, she was penned in the attic prison, while, down below, she heard him going about his business.
He started drinking late this afternoon, continuing on into the night.
Priming himself with alcoholic "courage".
For what?
Kelly could guess…
The pig lusted after her, of course.
She knew that fact well… had known it from the moment she hid first set eyes on him, and he on her.
It was shameful, the way he ogled her when he thought Mom wasn't watching.
At first, he had constantly annoyed her, trying to hug her and kiss her.
He pretended that he was only a paternally fond step-father.
But Kelly knew better.
The boys at school, and some of the teachers, often eyed her longingly.
But, although she was not in the least bit interested in them, and would never give a schoolboy a tumble, their desire was natural, clean.
But there was something unclean in the oily fervor with which her step-father constantly stared at her with those beady eyes.
He was always pawing her, trying to hug her, to get her to sit on his lap.
In the early days of the marriage, one of his tricks was to sneak up behind her and wrap her in a tight bear hug.
All in fun – that's what he pretended his attentions were.
But when he grabbed her from behind, and pressed sloppy kisses on her, she had felt his hardness pressing her buttocks.
She had nipped that in the bud, one day, by giving him an elbow in the ribs.
The next time he tried to paw her, she told him off in no uncertain terms.