Linda White pulled down her skirt so it would reach her knees as she began walking toward the administration building at Marley High School in Marley, California. If you didn't, she reminded herself, all the boys would be staring at your legs all day long.
Linda hurried into the building, saying, "Hello," to the few students she recognized from the first week of class. She wanted to keep making a good impression on the administrators, since it was her first job and she was years away rom getting tenure.
Besides, she and her husband Steve had sunk everything into this move into Southern California, leaving Ohio just a few weeks before. He'd gotten a job with a micro computing firm and after weeks of frantic phone calling around the Los Angeles area, she'd found this job of teaching world history to high school students.
It had been a change, a big one. The kids amazed Linda. Most of them, except for a few hippies and a sprinkling of blacks bussed into the school from downtown, tried to act and look like movie stars. They all had sun tans and blonde hair and expensive clothes that were usually worn as tight as humanly possible.
Well… it was a job that paid well and she and Steve needed every last penny to help pay for their house's mortgage. Besides, the staff at the school was pretty nice. They'd already been able to make some friends with a few of the younger teachers at the school.
She strolled into the faculty room and breathed a sigh of relief. At least in here you didn't feel like you were constantly on stage. Everyone was more or less equal and you didn't have the constant creeping fear that some kids might freak out on something.
"Hi, Linda!" five or six different voices chorused. "Hello, everyone," she said and flashed a big smile. People always told her it was her biggest physical asset, that smile. She was cute, they'd say, never pretty. Perhaps it was the smile that detracted from people noticing a nearly perfect body that was always clad in very sensible clothes. Like today, where she was wearing a white ruffled blouse and a plaid skirt. The one problem she'd worried about when she accepted the job at the high school was that there would be lots of big strong boys making eyes at her. It was silly, of course, but sometimes she'd feel oddly unprotected, maybe because her husband Steve was only her size about five-foot-five and not particularly muscular.
But everything had worked out fine so far she had no complaints, although it was clear to her that she was boring the daylights out of the kids in her class by talking about the Ancient Greeks and Romans. She'd always considered Alexander the Great one of the most fascinating figures in history. But the kids in her class, save just a few of them, would fall asleep if they had the chance. Since they had to sit, they'd pass notes instead. But Linda had been advised that as long as no one actually disrupted her lecture severely, there wasn't really too much to worry about.
"Let me tell you," Dan Jencks, who taught geography, said at the "Welcome Back Faculty" party a few days after school had started in early September. "As long as no one tried to hold you up with a gun, be grateful. Just keep on talking, make it as interesting as you possibly can and perhaps some of it will eventually seep into their thin little heads. You could do so much worse than this. Guys who I went to school with and are now teaching in the tough parts of town now tell me that they carry a gun with them at all times. Believe me, this is a school."
She couldn't really figure out why this man, who looked to be in his early 30's, was confiding in her. So she said, "Well, Dan, I appreciate your telling me that, but I'm not really sure why you brought it up, if you don't mind my asking you."
"Of course I don't mind," he said quietly, almost conspiratorially. "Look, you seem like a nice person. I just want to warn you that occasionally things go bad at this school. I can't really explain why except to say that Jack O'Neill just isn't cut out to be a principal. He won't crack down sometimes and none of us can figure out why. Also, he occasionally picks on some new member of the faculty if he doesn't think that they're obeying him to a T and really drives them crazy. The best way to avoid a hassle with him is to just be subservient as hell, if he says 'Jump!' then you be damn sure to ask him, 'How high?'"
She had only met Jack O'Neill twice and he seemed to be fairly harmless. A middle-aged man with graying hair and someone who could probably use some time running a few laps around the track she had concluded. Probably drinks too much and probably thinks he's really hot stuff for running this high school.
She hadn't even thought of him for a couple of days prior to that morning when he walked into the faculty room and tapped her on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Mrs. White," he softly said, "if I'm not wrong, you've got second period free. Could you come by my office then for a conference? It's nothing urgent, but I'd like to discuss a few things with you, if you don't mind."
"Sure no problem, Mr. O'Neill," she said. And she thought nothing of it, as he walked out of the room until she noticed that the constant chatter in the faculty room had almost ceased. Everyone was not really looking at her, yet not looking away, either.
She walked over to Dan Jencks and Raymond Powell, a math teacher, aware that everyone seemed to be sort of looking out of the corners of their eyes at her. I'd better just talk about normal stuff for a while, she thought, this is truly strange. "Hi Dan," she said brightly as she slid into a chair. "Hi, Ray. How's it going?"
"Fine, Linda. Just fine. How are you? You're looking good today," came the replies.
"Just fine. So what's new?"
Dan took a breath and said, "Just watch yourself, Linda. O'Neill is just one weird cookie. Did he ask to see you this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well, just don't do anything crazy," he said somberly. Then he laughed. "I'm sorry. You're smart. I know you won't do anything silly."
"Sure Dan, don't worry about me," she said as first period bell rang. All over the room, final gulps of coffee were thrown down throats and final puffs of cigarette smoke were inhaled.
"Lets go get 'em, team," said Bella Rogers, who taught girls Physical Education. This always brought a laugh forth even though she said it every morning. "Let's nail those little bastards good."
Well, that was normal, Linda thought, but Dan and Ray had certainly been acting oddly. "Whooaoh-oh, listen to the music," chorused the Doobie Brothers over the loudspeaker system as everyone rushed, to get to their first class. "Whooa-oh-oh, listen to the music, all the time."
It was a good song, she thought, and it made her forget any weirdness. God damn, but it was great to be out in California instead of freezing out in Ohio. It was about 80 degrees right now, and it would be 90 before the day was out. She could not remember anything like the Doobie Brothers or the Beach Boys being played over school loudspeakers or people at a high school feeling like they wanted to be there. How bad could Jack O'Neill be if he didn't mind letting a little music into people's lives to start the day?
It wasn't that being at school was the be-all and end-all of her life. If she could have, she would have rather just stayed cuddled in Steve's arms in bed. It was marvelous just to lie there and feel in love. "We take a walk, the sun is shining down, burns my feet as they touch the ground," sang the Beatles over the loudspeaker. "Good day, sunshine, good day, sunshine, good day sunshine…"
Steve was so nice. He'd read poetry to her, he'd play the guitar. They'd go to the beach together almost every free day. She was proud to show off in her tiny string bikini, keeping her arms wrapped around Steve's waist to emphasize that although anyone could look as much as they wanted, that had better be the limit of any approach to her. She loved it, getting a tan and feeling the anticipation of that night in bed building all afternoon as they sat on the beach, just sort of dozing in each other's arms.
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."
"Oh, I don't mind," she said. "What would you like to know?"
"Well, what do you like to do when you're not teaching? I just like to have an idea about that sort of thing. It makes my job easier."
Well, there was nothing weird about that, she thought. "Oh, I spend a lot of time with my husband. We like to go to movies, and we go to the beach whenever it's nice. I guess we're really intrigued by the beaches out here, since we're both from Ohio."
"Yes, I know you're from Ohio. And I love beaches myself, just for people-watching. Tell me, if you don't mind, uh, what do you go to beaches for? I mean, are you trying for a sun tan?"
"Yes. My husband Steve and I love the sun. We usually go to Zuma."
"Zuma? Is that where they have a nude beach? I think sometime ago I read something about that. Do you sunbathe in the nude up there?"
So this is what Dan Jencks meant, she thought. Good Lord, what an odd question. But she searched his face for even the slightest clue of lechery and couldn't find even a trace of it. "No. I haven't yet seen a nude beach, sir. And I doubt that we'd, use one if there was one around for us to use," she said evenly.
"I'm sorry," he said apologetically. "That's really none of my business. Tell me, what sort of movies do you and your husband go see?"
"We like comedies, anything that will make us laugh, which is just about everything."
"That's good," he said, with a fib of a flinch. "I guess I couldn't help but ask about your going to the beach because I can't help but notice your tan."
"That's very nice of you to say," she said, allowing a bit of sarcasm to creep into her voice. What a stupid line this creep was using, if he was trying to seduce her. She began feeling annoyed.
"I hope I haven't offended you," he was saying with a slight quiver in his voice. "Let ma show you to the door."
He came over to where she sat, one of his hands fooling with the change in his pants pocket, but at least not massaging himself like she had half expected.
In an instant, he had pulled a pair of handcuffs out of the pocket and snapped them onto her wrist and then onto his wrist. And as she stood with her mouth open in amazement, he drew a handkerchief out of his suit coat pocket and wrapped it around her head and mouth to gag her, then tied it, jerking her handcuffed hand up in the process. Then with his free hand he slowly ran his fingers over her blouse, and tried to locate her nipples.
"Oh, that feels good," he murmured.