"That is obvious," the other woman snapped waspishly. "And a good-night to you, Mrs. Dodge." And with that, Agnes Cartwright turned on her heel and was gone, swallowed up by the dense crowd of students in the auditorium.
The now hotly incensed teacher could feel frustrated anger and resentment boiling through her like a well-stoked furnace. Who did that old biddy think she was? She had no right to insinuate she was acting immoral, no right at all! Why she had a good mind to go in there and tell that bitch where to get off anyway, and to hell with the consequences. She could certainly understand why Harlow Cartwright was interested in other women, after having to live with a wife like her for so long.
But the sudden thought of how he'd danced with her made Miriam mentally feel the impression of his long, hot penis jammed against her, and she shuddered at the thought of it again. It was obvious that she would have to be on guard every minute she stayed at this horrid school, not only against her own impulses, but against Cartwright's as well. As soon as she had enough money saved up, she would find another teaching position and leave Logansville immediately…
Mark Trenton interrupted her unpleasant stream of thoughts by charging out of the auditorium. Breathlessly, he shouted to her: "There you are, Mrs. Dodge! I've been looking all over for you!"
"Mark! What ever is the matter with you?"
"Not with me! With Don!"
"Don? Donald Watson?" She tried to get her wits together, her head still swimming from the alcohol-drugged punch. "What… What's happened to him?"
"We were… we were fooling around up in the gym, and he hurt himself!"
"Heavens! We better get Mr. Cartwright!" she said, aware of her own numbed inadequacy. "I don't think that I…"
"But you have to, Mrs. Dodge! Don't get Mr. Cartwright! Please don't get him! We weren't supposed to be up there!"
Miriam paused, thinking of the terrible opinion the older principal had of his pupils, and of the way his wife had just snubbed her. "All right," she said suddenly. "Where is Don, did you say?"
"Up in the gym, Ma'am! Come on!" Mark grabbed her arm, propelling her around the side of the building toward another, dark and unused entrance. "I'll show you the way!"
As they hurried, Miriam worked desperately to sober herself through mental concentration, but the results were not very good. She still had no idea why she was feeling as though she had been drinking, and the answers from Mark when she asked what had happened were evasive and only served to confuse her further. Something was terribly wrong with this whole picture, but in her liquor-dulled mind, she couldn't figure out quite what it was…
She followed the young boy, stumbling up the almost pitch-black stairs and across to the gymnasium on the first floor. "How… how much further?" she panted, her breathing beginning to tighten across her chest.
"Just on the other side of the gym, Mrs. Dodge. In the storage room where the tumbling mats are kept."
"Goodness, what on earth were you three boys doing there…?"
They came to the small closet-like room where all the athletic equipment was kept, and Mark threw open the door. "In there!" He gestured into the sweat-smelling, stiflingly cramped enclosure. Miriam could see the oafish Joey Gore standing beneath the room's single, exposed light, while at his feet was the moaning, prostrate form of Don Watson. My God, he needed a doctor, not a floundering, confused English teacher! Quickly she rushed to the "injured" boy, dropping to her knees beside him.
"What's the matter, Donald?" she asked anxiously, glancing along his body as he lay there looking up at her.
"It's m'leg, I think," he groaned, rolling his head.
Gently, she felt along the upper portion of his leg where she thought he had indicated. "Does it hurt when I touch it?" she questioned.
"No, not there…" he shook his head, a slow, wicked smirk stretching the corners of his mouth. "You've got hold of the wrong leg, teacher… It's this one!"
Abruptly, he reached down with both hands and pulled down the front of his already unzipped pants. Miriam gasped in surprised shock as she saw his hardened, stubby young penis leap out, its smallish, blunt head throbbing as though it were staring up at her with one tiny slitted eye.
Again she gasped, falling back upon her haunches as she stared in disbelief at the sight of him lying there, suddenly grinning lewdly and exposing his rigid young genitals up at her.
"What… what's the meaning of this outrage?" she demanded, snapping her eyes angrily from the taunting exhibition to the smirking face of Joey Gore standing over her.
"Why, Mrs. Dodge, Don's only trying to show you where he hurts," Joey said with mock seriousness. "Seems every time he sees you, he gets this pain in his cock, and…"
"Joey Gore!" Miriam exclaimed, her startled face burning with the livid red of her fury. "How dare you talk like that to me!" She stumbled to her feet, her body trembling with rage. "Mr. Cartwright's going to have a complete report of this, and so will your father. And Mark, I'm surprised that you would be part of this awful, awful…"
"Shut up," Gore suddenly snarled. He took a step toward her and caught her by the wrist, jerking her toward one of the thin, stained tumbling mattresses which lined the floor. He flung her down on it, snapping, "Don, lock the door so teacher can't get out!"
Miriam stumbled to one knee from the violence of his sudden, unexpected shoving. Her head spun with the force of his whip-like jerk, and she could only look up with dazed, terrified, eyes, her shock of the moment before giving way to the first stages of panic. She heard the storage room being locked with the hollow finality of a dungeon cell door, and she horrifyingly realized that she had virtually no chance of escape. The boys, young as they were could together easily overpower her even if she managed to unlock the door, and in this dark deserted corner of the school building, nobody would hear her muffled shouts for help. God, how right she'd been that something was wrong about Mark's urgent request! She'd been a fool, leading herself straight into a trap!
"But – why?" she heard herself ask feebly. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Well, you're a fine English teacher, Mrs. Dodge," Gore said, the handsome youth's lips peeled back sharply from his teeth. "But Mark says you're good at another more basic subject, so we thought we'd like to see just what you know."
"Mark! You… you didn't tell them!" she gasped.
"Yeah," the boy said, chagrined at first. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Dodge. It sort of slipped out." But in spite of his obvious shame for what he'd done, Miriam could see that there was a gleam of hungry arousal in Mark's dark young eyes, and a small, unhidable grin of licentiousness around his mouth.
Dear God, he was as much an animal as Joey or Don Watson! And then the ghastly truth struck her that she was the cause of his change from a once innocent child. She'd perverted him for her own desires last Sunday, and had taught him lust for lust's own sake without the tempering of mercy or compassion. She had nobody to blame except herself, and now she was reaping the rewards of her salacious lessons by an obscene three-fold vengeance!
Miriam heard the boys' laughing grunts, and a helpless sinking sensation gripped her insides as she speechlessly watched them strip themselves of their clothing before her. Her eyes remained fixed upon their naked youthfulness, her mind blanking from sensible reasoning as she stared at their virile passion-erect penises jutting lewdly out from their firm, hairless young abdomens.
"Don't… Please don't hurt me," she whimpered cringingly.
"I made them promise they wouldn't, Mrs. Dodge," Mark said reassuringly. "We just want a little fun with you, like I had. And Jesus, you sure seemed to like it then."
"That's right, teacher," Joey Gore added in a soothing voice. He moved toward her, lowering himself down to the mat to sit beside her. "You be nice to us, and we'll be nice to you. I mean… like this!"