"Right on, man," Watson hooted derisively to his friend. "Show her how it's done!"
A low giggle rippled through the class, but Miriam's sharply brittle voice silenced it abruptly. "That will be enough!" she snapped. "And when Joey is finished, we'll just see how good Donald is on declining verbs."
Through sheer self-control Miriam had never known she possessed before, she painfully lasted through the inner throes of her shame and fear for the rest of the class period!
And the balance of that day, and the following few days… Miraculously, things began to look a little better for the miserably haunted woman by the day of the Freshman-Sophomore dance. She could look back over the week and say that the two young ruffians, Joey and Don, had been uncommonly quiet, and she'd been able to avoid a head-on meeting with both Mark Trenton or his father, Roger. She was even beginning to feel an initial degree of peace of mind almost too good to last.
CHAPTER FOUR
Friday evening, Miriam bathed and changed from her sober wool suit she'd worn that day into a more informal short beige dress with buttons all down its front. She drove back to the high school building and arrived punctually at eight o'clock. The dance was being held in the downstairs cafeteria, which had a side entrance that opened out on the parking area reserved for the staff, but which already was lined with a few older cars and pickups she recognized as belonging to some of the students.
She could hear music as she walked inside the cafeteria, and saw that a five-piece rock group was warming up on the small stage near the back. They were obviously local talent, equipped with drums and electric guitars, and they were filling the low-ceilinged room with ear-splitting squeals, thumps, and twangs. Around the sides of the room, the usual dining tables and benches had been replaced by small round tables and folding chairs. On the tables were candles, the kind that were inside rose-tinted glass bowls, and the regular lights were dimmed almost to complete darkness, so that the cafeteria was bathed in a warm, romantically flickering glow. Bunting and streamers festooned the walls, and the snack-bar at the end had been converted into a gaily-decorated "bar", where a large crystal bowl of punch sat among stacks of glasses.
The dance was supposed to go from eight to midnight, and although there were some boys and girls standing around, Miriam didn't expect things to become fully swinging until eight-thirty or nine o'clock. She walked over to the punch bowl, and was dipping herself a glass of the non-alcoholic drink, when Harlow Cartwright and his wife came out of the door leading to the kitchen.
"On time, I see," the principal said, running his tongue around his lips. "Good. It looks better if the kids see us all in force when they arrive. Tones them down right from the start."
"You're not expecting trouble, are you?" Miriam asked nervously. "Surely the students wouldn't be…"
"Don't be naive," Cartwright interrupted. "They would try anything. They'll sneak in liquor or even drugs if we let them. Times have changed, and where we were taught to know our place, nowadays they think they can get away with murder."
"Yes, sir," Miriam replied, not wishing to argue with him.
"You haven't met my wife, have you? Agnes, this is our new English teacher, Mrs. Dodge."
Agnes Cartwright was a round-faced, chunky woman somewhere in her mid-fifties. She was at least half a foot shorter than her husband, wore her coarse, graying hair in an old-fashioned bun, and layered cheap makeup over her age-lines and the sagging flesh of her cheeks. Her small, moist dark eyes bore an uncompromising expression, making her remind Miriam of the old pictures of Victorian suffragettes axing saloons and other devilish places.
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," the woman said, appraising the blonde-haired teacher critically. "Harrow's description of you didn't do you justice. You seem so much younger and… prettier than he'd let on."
Her wet eyes continued to bore hostilely into Miriam with cold penetration. Miriam felt extremely uncomfortable, and she tried to think of an excuse to leave them. "Perhaps I should wait by the door," she suggested. "I could greet the students as they came in."
"Good idea," Cartwright said, nodding. "That way you can give them a quick glance to see if they're carrying any bottles or not. Damned marijuana, though. I can't find a way of stopping them from smoking short of stripping them down to their skin."
"Yes," his wife added. "You keep a sharp eye out, Mrs. Dodge. If you see anything or have any trouble, you find Harlow, you hear?"
"I'll know how to deal with those young whippersnappers," Cartwright promised, his lips taut and thin.
Miriam took her glass of punch and hurried to the side door. God, what an old-fashioned, narrow-minded attitude the pair of them had! No wonder juvenile delinquency was as rampant as it was, with such deplorable people as the Cartwrights in charge of education. She'd hate to have to turn in a child who'd committed some silly little prank, for she could see that the punishment would outstrip the crime. No, if there were any problems tonight – she doubted that there would be – she would try to find a way of handling them herself.
The auditorium gradually filled, the students filing in long streams through the door beside Miriam before finding tables and beginning to dance. The time sped swiftly for the blonde, curvaceous teacher, and soon she found herself enjoying the young teenaged scene. The band kept a heavy, throbbing beat which seemed to infiltrate through her body, even though the five boys of the band were playing with more enthusiasm than professionalism. The dancing was of the modern style in the small, open clearing surrounded by the ring of tables, the couples gyrating in arm-waving, leg-twisting abandonment. She'd read somewhere that this was the current form of ancient African Tribal fertility rites; a type of make-believe, clothed sexual mating – and she could well believe it. Just standing by the door and tapping her foot in time to the music, she could feel a strange, light-fingered pulsing begin deep between her own thighs as though she were sexually responding to the heady, jungle-born rhythms.
Along about nine-thirty, when the room was thronged with kids she couldn't even remember the names of, Mark Trenton appeared at the door with his two buddies, Joey Gore and Don Watson. The sight of the three of them, especially young Mark, seemed to bring her back from her giddy enjoyment to grim reality with a sharp, shuddering jolt of pain.
"E-evening," Mark said in a low voice, turning his eyes away from meeting hers.
"Good evening, Mark," she replied calmly, even though his sudden presence was causing unexpected flutterings to ripple through her belly. "Didn't you bring a date for tonight?"
"Naw," Don Watson answered for the boy. "Ain't no girls we know pretty as you, Mizz Dodge."
"That's for sure," Joey chimed in. "You going to save us a dance, maybe?"
"I can't," she declined even though she loved to dance. "I'm supposed to be a chaperone here, not join in the fun."
"Aw, sure you can," Joey persisted. "All the teachers do. Look, even old Marble-hea – I mean, Mr. Cartwright – is having a fling."
Miriam turned to glance at the dance-floor, and indeed, the husky youth was right. Harlow Cartwright was holding his wife sedately at arm's length, attempting a jogging fox-trot to the music. She had a hard time stifling a giggle at the ludicrous sight. "Well, maybe later on then," she agreed. "I'll see how busy I am."
"Right on," Watson said. "I'll be looking forward to a dance, too. Come on, gang, I need some of that punch, first."
Mark Trenton didn't say a word, only following the other boys with his head hanging down sheepishly. Miriam watched the three of them disappear into the crowd, feeling a sigh of relief pass by her lips. God, poor young Mark must still be ashamed as she was of their naked coupling on her bed last Sunday morning. He was an innocent, sensitive boy, and it was obvious that he hadn't been able to bury what had happened in his mind and forget it any more than she had. Then, once more, the perverse memory of the lewd intercourse she had committed with him filtered once again through her head, reviving the tingling twitch between her thighs until she was forced to squeeze them tightly together in an effort to end the taunting sensations.