Forbidden Lessons (17 page)

To Susie’s delight Teresa Hubert was also in detention that week. Teresa had been caught copying answers in Maths. Which wasn't stupid in itself, everyone did it from time to time, but it was immensely stupid when the person she copied from, Andrea, had even more miserable mathematical abilities than Teresa's. Identical wrong answers were an obvious giveaway. Of course if Teresa was less stupid, Susie thought, she would have copied them from Mary Rudge or someone who was good at Maths.

"What are you in for?" she asked Teresa, knowing full well what the answer was.

"A misunderstanding," Teresa said.

"A little misunderstanding in Maths?" Susie asked with a falsely polite smile. Teresa scowled at her.

"Why are you here?" As Teresa did German and not Geography, she knew nothing of Susie's feud with Mrs Ayers.

"Sheer pleasure," Susie said.

It turned out to be closer to Her Majesty's Pleasure that afternoon, since detention was taken by Mrs Grayson. Although the Headmistress was liked and respected, unlike teachers such as Mrs Ayers and Miss Quayle, no one dared breathe out of line when she presided over an event. Susie's racy novel would have to stay out of sight today.

Mrs Grayson's patience had already been tried that morning by Jenkins and his absurd and alarming account of a tramp invading the pavilion. The police had been round to investigate but found nothing much. It seemed a window had been forced.

"Stinking mess it was too, not as I like to say it out loud but he'd used it as a facility so to speak," Jenkins had said.

Jenkins had been instructed to clean the room and fix the window as well as check various other windows and locks around the school as a priority, but Mrs Grayson remained troubled. A vagrant breaking into a girls' school might have more sinister motives than shelter for the night. She needed to put the school on higher caution without creating alarm. Schoolgirls were prone to drama and she didn't want to make mountain out of a molehill and trigger a slew of false alerts and mass panic.

Yet she was troubled. Something seemed wrong with the school that term but she hadn't been able to pinpoint what it was. There was the disruption from Miss Vine's plan with the school play of course. Yet nothing untoward had arisen from that so far beyond a few friendships developing between pupils of the two schools. Mrs Grayson was of the mind that these things would happen anyway among young people - just look at Romeo and Juliet - so it wasn't a major concern. Better, all things said and done, to know what was going on. She didn't want another Lucy Martin on her hands.

She looked at the dark head of the new pupil on the back row, seemingly intent on her work. Of course Susie Clarke wasn't the only new pupil that term, there was an entire intake of new girls in the youngest class. But she was the only new girl in her year.

She remembered what Grace Grant had said to her about Susie's endless detentions. Looking at her now the phrase "butter wouldn't melt" came to mind but Mrs Grayson had been a schoolmistress far too long to take anything at face value.

Going over to Susie's desk to see what she was working on the Headmistress noticed a birthday badge pinned on her jersey. Badges weren't strictly allowed but an exception was usually made for birthdays.

"Is it your birthday today, Susie?" Susie said it was. "A very happy birthday then. I should have thought you would have taken more care to stay out of detention to celebrate your day."

Susie saw Teresa Hubert smirking but was unfazed. "Yes, is it unfortunate," she told the Headmistress.

It wasn't the response she would have expected from most girls but looking at Susie, cool and composed, Mrs Grayson felt some of the reservations that Grace Grant had had. It was to be expected, perhaps, that given Susie's near-expulsions from other schools she wouldn't be the most ordinary or most easy girl. But whereas defiance or disobedience might have been anticipated from such a case, this was something else.

It needed some careful thought. The Headmistress determined to speak with Grace Grant again, and meanwhile make her own observations of Susie.

* * *

Mr Poynter had asked some of his history class to volunteer to help mend old books in the library on Saturday afternoon. He used Mars Bars as a bribe but those that signed up to help actually did so because they liked him. The weather was awful anyway and there were no other activities planned that weekend.

Susie of course had detention, Charlotte had hockey and Margery wanted to do some homework so Laura was the only one of the four to volunteer.

Mr Poynter started referring to it as the Bookbinding Club and Laura hoped with a heavy heart that it wouldn't become a too-frequent event. As school societies went it would rank below even the prayer circle and the knitting group in terms of social cachet.

Feeling fairly ambivalent but with nothing better to do she made her way to the library. She walked by herself as the other girls taking part were from different houses.

As she crossed into the main school buildings Mr Rydell came up beside her. "Heading anywhere interesting?" he asked. He was still wearing his work clothes. Teachers rarely ever wore casual clothes around the school even if they were off duty.

It was thrilling to get a brief moment with him alone. "Only the library," she said. "Mr Poynter wants us to help him mend some old books. He bribed us with chocolate and a future school excursion."

"That's where I'm going too. Though Charles - Mr Poynter - roped me in with the promise of some beer."

As she walked next to him - this tall, athletic, good looking man - Laura wished the whole world could know that she was with him, that he was hers. They passed Miss Quayle and Miss Vine in the courtyard and she wondered what they would think if they knew. They were his colleagues, on the same level as him, and she was just a pupil. Yet she was the one closest to him, with the most intimate knowledge of him. It gave her a strange pride when she thought about it.

They had reached the library steps and he ushered her in first.

"It's not quite what I would plan for a date but if it gets me an afternoon with you, Mr Poynter has my every thanks," he said.

The History teacher was delighted to see them all. "Welcome, welcome. Great to see so many dedicated book lovers."

It was easy to contrive to sit next to one another at one of the shared tables. As they got to work with tape, scissors and the various bookbinding materials he could press his leg against hers. Just being in physical contact with him was wonderful.

Being in the library also gave them a green light to talk in low voices.

"How has your week been?" he asked.

She couldn't answer this truthfully without mentioning the midnight feast which she had decided not to tell him about for now, least of all at a time like this.

"Lessons pretty much as usual," she said. She hated having a lie between them, or an absence of truth, and for a moment felt badly towards Susie for putting her in such a position. But if it wasn't for Susie hardly any of her time with him would have been possible, in fact the whole thing might never have happened if Susie's advice hadn't helped Laura pluck up her courage.

So on balance, Susie had helped her. And Laura more than owed it to her to keep silent about the party. Put like that, as a debt to Susie rather than a lie to Mr Rydell, it didn't seem so bad.

"None of the others joining you today?" He referred to her dorm mates.

"All busy.
 
Susie has yet another detention. Mrs Ayers again."

"That woman is a blight," he said. He spoke so low that no one could hear him except Laura.

"That's exactly what Charlotte says," she told him.

"The way I saw her treat you after you had fallen that time, I felt violent with anger. Even if it hadn't been you I would have been furious."

"Did you already know by then how you felt? About me?"

"I knew from the start. I couldn't get you out of my mind. When I called you back to my classroom I was tempted to make a move even then," he said.

"I wanted you to."

He linked his foot around her ankle. "I want you right now. Isn't there some dark corner or long lost book vault we can find?"

"No, only upstairs and it's always busy." The upper level of the library was reached by a spiral staircase. Anyone could go up there to get a book, but only Sixth Formers were allowed to work on the desks up there. It didn't look as though anyone was up there currently, but you couldn't see the whole area from where they were sitting.

"Let's try it."

"Are you serious? What will Mr Poynter say?"

He ignored her protests. "What books are up there?"

"English literature."

Mr Rydell got up, and spoke in a deliberately louder voice. "You can show me where they are, Laura. Charles, there are some very dog-eared poets that have apparently escaped attention. Practically falling apart." Mr Poynter had naturally focused most of the initial efforts on preserving the works of his own subject, History.

"We should do those as a priority," Mr Poynter agreed.

Mr Rydell went up the stairway, getting Laura to follow him. They were in luck: there were no Upper School girls working up there that afternoon.

In an instant he had pulled her to the side of the upper level that was out of view of those below. He pushed her back against the shelves and pinning her there, kissed her. She smelt his skin, drank in his male scent, felt the roughness of stubble against her face.
 

His tongue explored her while he moved her hand onto his groin. He was rock hard. "It's not easy to stick books together with that distracting me," he said.

Laura had never felt so turned on. She wanted that hardness, wanted to bring him relief, wanted to bring herself relief. The fleeting moments that they could allow themselves to embrace, the presence of the others below, the intensity of their desire and the massive risk: it was insanity. It was also the sexiest thing in the world.

"God knows how I'm going to wait until Exeat," he said, breaking away. "Or find these supposed crumbling literary texts that we've promised Mr Poynter." Swiftly he grabbed an old copy of Spenser and pulled a couple of pages loose. "Always found him overrated, but we'll fix him up better than ever before." He grabbed a couple of other books that did look in need of repair and they went back down the stairs.

After never being properly alone with Mr Rydell since half term, except for the brief moment in the library, by exeat Laura felt she would burst. The nights had drawn in for winter so it was already dark when she slipped off to the groundsman's cottages again. She had borrowed Charlotte’s coat as it had a hood.

Having been pent up for weeks he did not let her off lightly.

They lay in bed, Laura exhausted but completely happy, talking together about various things when he stopped her.

"Did you just call me Sir?"

She was mortified. They were so used to calling the male teachers by this title that it had just slipped out with him. Possibly because she had made more of a conscious effort to use it in German lessons to mask any sense of familiarity. She started to apologise.

"Don’t apologise, I think I rather like it," he told her.

She wasn’t sure if he was joking. Then he moved her hand onto him. He was rock hard.

"Already?" She was surprised as he never usually recovered this quickly.

"You saying that did it. You’d better say it again."

"How?" She wasn’t sure what he wanted.

"Ask me to fuck you."

She found it hard to say things like this though she knew it turned him on. And it turned her on too, being made to say them.

"Please fuck me Sir."

"Say it again," he ordered.

She complied and he grabbed her and took possession of her. She was slightly bruised from his forcefulness before but he didn’t go any more gently on her. "Keep saying it," he ordered.

"I want you to fuck me Sir." She looked directly at him while she said it. It was the first time they had directly played off the power imbalance between them, any sense of equality gone. She was his pupil and his subordinate and he was fully in charge.

He was done in seconds, the fastest ever. Then he went down on her and brought her to liquid in less than a minute. She was amazed how quickly he got her there.

"For God’s sake never call me that in class again. I’ll get flashbacks," he said.

She looked up at him, into his eyes. "I love you Sir." She was half mocking him, half meaning it. She saw the effect that it had on him, his eyes darkening.
 

"Stop, I can’t go again, it will be physically painful," he said.

She knew now that she could say it whenever she wanted to get leverage. Wrap him around her little finger. How strange that submitting - or playing at submitting - actually gave her more power over him.

* * *

True to his word he started coaching her in English even though she pointed out that university entrance was ages away.

"If you get a handle on this now, you’ll coast it later on. I want to give you some advantage if I can."

When he went through the texts and her work with her he switched back into teacher mode. It was different from English lessons because it was one-on-one, so she was getting more individual attention in a single session than she would get from a term with Mr Peters.
 

He took the tuition seriously which Laura found disconcerting at first, expecting him to play around with her. She hadn’t expected him to just do her homework for her but she had thought it might be a more leisurely experience.

But he was equally as good a teacher of English literature as he was of German, so she soon became absorbed as well.

"This is really to A-level standard, this degree of criticism and analysis," he said. "But it’s worthwhile getting a grasp of it now."

He introduced a lot of background material and context: texts which she had occasionally heard of but hadn’t ever studied. She started to understand how these earlier works, as well as the historical context, illuminated the texts they were doing. In fairness to Mr Peters he had also referenced some of this material but only fleetingly. Teaching a class of a couple of dozen pupils couldn’t compare to solo tuition.