Arrogance trickled down the young sixteen year old Tobias’s back as he realized he would be having sex with his young English teacher, Ms. Codroy. She was “slamming” for a teacher according to the male students of her class. She had a unique sense of fashion — she wore round rimmed spectacles, floral-patterned dresses, and had short brown hair with a slight orange streak. It was pretty cool, thought Tobias. Real unique yet ordinary. I must be insane, he felt.
After school ended, Ms. Codroy, asked Tobias to come by so that they could discuss his essay about self-reliance. Tobias entered her class, and suddenly got very excited. It’s going to happen, he thought to himself as he saw her reading the dictionary at her desk. He cherished her even more at that point. He thought, how cool, she’s just sitting there reading a dictionary, and she seems so fascinated by it.
Tobias knocked on the door, and waved his hand with a stupid grin on his face after she looked at him and smiled.
“Come on down,” said Ms. Codroy. Tobias came on down, and sat across from her. “Do you have a copy of your paper?” she continued.
“No. I apologize for that,” he replied.
“No need for apologies, Tobias.” She leaned in closer to Tobias, looking very intrigued. Tobias thought her white dress and vest combo was excellent and original. “What a fascinating name. Tobias. It sounds like a name you would give to a falcon,” Ms. Codroy said.
“I’ve never heard that before.” He followed saying, “I was named after my father.”
“Really? I was named after my father too.”
“No kidding. What’s your first name, Ms. Codroy?”
“Marissa.”
Tobias laughed out loud. She looked slightly hurt, and asked, “What’s so funny?”
Tobias immediately stopped smiling, and looked at her grave face. “Nothing. Nothing’s funny, Ms. Codroy.”
“Please. It’s Marissa, and there are things in the world that are funny. Do you know the comedian Jerry Seinfeld? I find him funny.”
“I… I didn’t mean it like that. I… wasn’t sure what to say after you asked–” he decided it would be best to just give up that sentence.
Marissa took a sip from her cup of tea, and said, “You know, my father risked his life to save a little girl. He saw her throwing a ball in the air and catching it in the streets, and he pushed her to safety when a car was approaching.” She took a moment, looking at a purple stapler on her desk, before continuing with her story. “It was strange though. The car barely tapped him, and he died. His wrists were bleeding too as if someone slit his wrists. The guy who hit him claimed my father was running toward the car and his wrists were already bleeding, but that’s hard to believe.” Tobias started feeling uncomfortable, but remembered that he would probably be having sex with his teacher, and got excited again. Marissa went on. “My father suffered a lot being named Marissa by his perpetually intoxicated parents. I never understood why Dad wanted to name me Marissa too. I’m twenty-eight years old. Did you know that, Tobias?”
“No. I thought… I thought you were fifteen because… because you look so young.” Tobias immediately hated himself after completing that sentence. He started getting introspective. He held his breath, hoping somehow he would die from this. Why do I speak, why do I attempt to do things when I just end up screwing myself, he thought to himself. Did she even want to have sex with me? Why did I even think she wanted to have sex with me? Ms. Codroy presented Tobias with a copy of his paper. He looked down at it, and remembered why he thought she wanted to have sex with him. On the paper, it said, “Do you want to have sex with me after school? When I ask you to come on down, that means that’s when I want to have sex with you. Oh, and good job on your paper. There were interesting ideas.“
Tobias noticed he had an erection. Is this right? Should I be having an erection right now, he pondered. Ms. Codroy ran her fingers through her hair, and stopped abruptly realizing she scheduled the sex session with Tobias the same day as another student named Sydney. That’s when Sydney entered with a huge grin on his face.
“Hey. It’s me Sydney.” Tobias and Ms. Codroy looked alarmed which made Sydney nervous. “What… what’s going on? Is this a bust?”
“No, Sydney. This is just a meeting. I’m going over Tobias’s paper,” said the attractive teacher.
“Oh, really? I heard good things about Tobias’s paper. May I see it?” asked Sydney while he was already starting to walk to the desk. He saw the note on the paper, and felt lonely all of a sudden. People like people who other people like too. I haven’t accepted that fact yet, Sydney thought.
“I am uncharacteristically pretentious,” muttered Sydney under his breath. He followed muttering, “That was a pretentious thing to do — to mutter something you think is intelligent under your breath.” Marissa observed this action, and in her nervous state of mind, thought Sydney was placing a curse on her because she remembered these are teenagers who don’t know any better. She felt they thought placing curses was a cool thing to do.
“Don’t do it, Sydney,” said Marissa.
“Do what? I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re always doing something. Even if you think you’re not, you could be sitting or standing. That’s something, Sydney, so don’t do it.” Marissa reached for a sharp pen in her open drawer while still looking at Sydney nervously. Sydney looked at his teacher, and wondered why she was trying to grab a pen so discreetly as if she didn’t want him to know that she was grabbing it when clearly, he was looking right at her.
“What are you doing, Ms. Codroy?” asked the confused Sydney.
“It’s Marissa! She was named after her father who risked his life to save a girl, but who may have tried to kill himself before actually saving the girl,” exclaimed Tobias as he stood up proudly. Sydney turned towards Tobias and noticed Tobias’s erection.
“I would’ve found that–” said Sydney before being stabbed in the arm by Marissa’s sharp pen.
“Why did you do that?” asked Sydney.
“It’s not cool, Sydney. Relax. Things will be fine. You will find out later that things that were cool in high school won’t be so cool when you go to college, and cool things in college won’t be so cool after graduation, and I’m a God damn high school teacher,” said Marissa before she started crying. She sat on her legs on the floor while looking down at her sharp pen.
“Jesus Christ. I can’t stand this. I feel trapped. I’m sick of reading and grading your papers, and assigning books that I feel capture my feelings and thoughts. I just want to… I don’t even know. Moratorium,” said Marissa.
“That was the title of my essay,” said Sydney while he still nursed his wound.
Still with a massive erection, Tobias sat besides Marissa and tapped her back. “Thanks for giving me a good grade on my essay. You’re a great teacher, and you’re beautiful.”
“I know I’m beautiful.”
“You’re lucky. Not a lot of people are. I have to go now, but I’ll think about you and what you said,” Tobias said before gathering his things.
“Hey Tobias. I may or may not have lied about my dad. I’ll keep it at that.”
Tobias tapped Sydney’s arm before leaving, forgetting he was just stabbed, and Sydney grimaced in pain. Marissa looked up at Sydney and asked, “Why are you still here?”
“I thought we were going to have sex,” he replied.
“Sydney. Please leave.”
Sydney frowned and left. Marissa sat there, and decided that it might do her good to move out to some place where no one knew each other, and did not like talking about their pasts.
