Somehow, Steve never shared the same anticipation, although he never seemed to mind, either, that she would be getting excited through the day just by looking at his cute little body, almost like a boy's. Sometimes they would go days without making love. It seemed as if all Steve wanted to do was cuddle up with her. Linda never let this bother her, though. It would have been far worse, she thought, to have a sex fiend that chased after every skirt that he could catch sight of. The very thought that the man she married could be unfaithful to her, would send chills up her spine. So she was eternally grateful that she had chosen a man who was not wild and crazy, but one who just wanted to settle down and love his wife.
It was a great marriage. She'd only had two other boyfriends before marrying Steve and they'd only been interested in getting her clothes off, getting her into bed and dumping her as fast as possible. It had left her so cold, that when Steve had come into her life, she felt wonderful, since there was actually a man in her life who wanted to be with her all the time. She had always doubted she was really attractive until he had come along. She never would have worn a bikini anywhere until she met Steve.
It was odd how much time she spent thinking about Steve when she was in between times at school, such as now as she waited for the Pledge of Alliance and the morning announcements. As usual, there were about five boys in the front row of the class trying to look up her dress or trying to sneak a peak up the cut-offs of one of the nubile girls who'd stretch out oblivious of the stares of these tortured boys.
Finally, she began her lecture, reminding herself that the more she got out of the way, the nearer she'd be to being able to go home and see Steve. She always dressed up in a gown, something clingy, but tasteful, for when he came home, mindful that he would be seeing pretty young women in tight pants all day long, or so she imagined. They never talked about it. She was sure that talking about it would have embarrassed Steve to death.
"Everything leads to everything else," she began today, and she could feel a collective sigh pass through the room. These kids were so bored. They wanted to be outside at the beach or at least the parking lot flirting away with each other and getting loaded put of their minds. Just keep talking and maybe some of it will sink in, she told herself.
"The Roman Empire is a fine example of this. Of course, we look around and there's nothing left of the Roman Empire except for the Vatican City, which is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, even now."
"Where's that?" asked Mark, one of the front row boys who always had a wisecrack.
"In Rome," she said to laughter. You always had to play straight man to these kids. God, Steve, I wish we could just go to the beach and get all tanned, she thought. "Now, one of the reasons the European part of the world remained pre-eminent for so long was the fact that even though Rome itself fell, the techniques developed for administering the empire had been passed on to such areas as Gaul, which we call France now, and Constantinople, which became Turkey."
"Don't they call it Turkey because turkeys live there?" asked Lenny, one of the other smart-sleek front row boys. This was typical.
"Nice going, Lenny. You're bound to get an 'A' with answers like that," she said. More laughter. "Actually I'm not sure why they call it Turkey. If you want some extra credit, Lenny, why don't you look that up and find out why? I'll ask you tomorrow about it. As I was saying or as I did say yesterday, the key to the collapse of the Roman Empire is the loss of the Eastern half of the empire, which meant that the same costs were still there, but there was much less for the empire to draw upon. This led to a decline in the ability and spirit of the rest of the empire, so when the barbarians showed up, there was not much resistance."
On this morning as others, she could feel the gaze of these hungry youngster satyrs, starving for any kind of sexual release. Their eyes burned into her ripe, full breasts, her smooth trim waist and her flaring hips, which were just big enough to accentuate her waist nicely. She only found the attention annoying. There were thousands of girls out there, she wanted to tell them. If you just wait for the right one to come along instead of forcing things to happen, you'll be fine. Instead, these boys undressed with their eyes any woman they saw.
She imagined it had something to do with the preponderance of half-clad females on TV and in the movies, along with all the creamy beauties on the soft-core pornography magazines in the grocery stores. She could almost feel them, these lustful boys, comparing her body to the pictures as she described how the barbarians had come from the Northern European steppes and Hungary and even as far away as the middle of Russia. I bet I look as good as those slutty girls in those magazines, she thought to herself.
"When the barbarians invaded a village in the Roman Empire, one of the methods they would always use in subjecting the local populace to rape," she said as she felt the class come to attention. No doubt it had been her use of the word "rape". Even Sally, the prototype of a dumb blonde, with huge breasts and a hookers wardrobe, stopped putting make-up on her face. Then Sally shut her compact.
"It was one of the more disheartening events in the life of a village in that it debased the lives of everyone associated with it," she continued. The class was actually paying attention. "It debased the rapers, of course. It ruined the lives of the victims and it made their husbands feel absolutely useless and powerless. The gradual result of the barbarian invasion, since they lacked any administrative ability to maintain law and order, was a general lack of respect for the individual, particularly since the hordes could do pretty much as they pleased as I've indicated to you…"
Gradually, as she began to describe the sequence of the final Roman emperors, the class began to lose the attention it had brought when "rape" was mentioned. She made a note to herself to be sure to mention that to her other classes later in the day. Maybe, just for the hell of it, she'd even undo a button or two at the top of her blouse. That would really drive the boys crazy. Maybe she'd even hitch up her skirt just a little bit. She couldn't help but feel a bit contemptuous of them.
But she made sure that her skirt was hiked down and that her blouse wasn't straining against her breasts when she went to Jack O'Neill's office. She didn't want to give him any kind of excuse to be upset with her. And she felt a little strange about what Dan Jencks had said earlier in the day as if she were going to be physically attacked by the man, although that seemed ridiculous.
She walked into his office and told the secretary that she had an appointment and the secretary gave her a sly smile. "My God," she thought, "I can't look that much like a pervert. These people are just plain weird. They've got sex on their minds all of the time. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it."
"He'll be with you in a second, Mrs. White," the secretary said. "I'm really pleased to meet you. Everyone says you're doing a very good job with the history classes, and I'm really glad."
"Thank you," she said, feeling relieved. She supposed that what had happened about mentioning the word "rape" made her a little bit on edge.
"You can go in now," the secretary said after her phone buzzed.
And it seemed that there was nothing to this meeting. Jack O'Neill simply said very perfunctory things about how she'd been doing a good job and how she should feel free to call on him or either of the vice principals if anything ever went wrong in her class, anything at all. How did she like Marley High?
She liked it fine, she said. That's good he said, because I really like to push for a family feeling here. Which is the real reason I called you in here, he went on. "I just wanted to find out a little bit about you personally, if you don't mind."