Teach Me Dirty (14 page)

“No, please…”

I pushed against her and she was so tight she barely opened for me. I groaned, and my cock twitched and jerked. “Relax, Helen. Let me in…”

I kissed her mouth and pushed a little harder, and her pussy stretched around me just enough for the tip. I pushed a little more and she tensed up, her whole body tense. “Ow…” she breathed.

I stopped moving. “It’s ok. Just relax.”

She screwed her eyes shut and bit her lip, and squeaked as I pushed in again, and something was off, something was very off.

“Helen… are you ok?”

I hovered above her, staring until she opened her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m really good.” But she squeaked again and gripped my thigh with her fingers. “Just please… go slow… go really slow…”

I was going slow. Slower than I’d ever gone. And then it dawned.

“You’ve done this before, yes?”

No answer.

“Helen, have you done this before?”

She turned her face away from me and her expression said it all.

The air left my lungs, and she was a little girl again. A little girl in a sweet white bra on the school stage about to be fucked by a teacher twenty years her senior. It made me feel sick. Sick with myself.

“I thought you said there’d been others. Boyfriends?”

She covered her face in mortification. “There were…”

“But you didn’t…?”

Her lip trembled when she answered me. “I was… I was nine… we didn’t…”

Oh sweet Christ. I pulled away. Quickly. My fingers shook as I pulled my jeans back up. “Christ, Helen. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” she said. “Please don’t say that. I want this! I really want this!” I picked up her panties and slipped them back over her feet, and even though she was protesting she pulled them up, and her jeans up after it. I handed her her t-shirt. “I shouldn’t have said anything… I should have just been brave…”

“No,” I said, and my voice was harsher than I intended. “You should absolutely have said something.” I sighed, and sat beside her, pulled her to me, and she was crying, again, and I felt like a bastard, again. “Helen, your first time is something special. It should be something amazing with someone amazing. It shouldn’t be on the floor of a school stage, with someone twice your age. I promise you, you’ll thank me for this.”

I hugged her tight but her body didn’t believe me. “No,” she sobbed. “I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”

“You’ve ruined nothing and saved yourself a lot.”

“I don’t want to save myself! I want you!”

I pulled her face up to mine and already her eyes were puffy. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t do this. I’ll be brave, I won’t worry, you can do it, I promise. I’ll be good now.”

“Helen, you are good. You’re so good. You’re beautiful and kind and special and worth so much more than this.”

“But I’m not…” she cried. “This is everything I wanted…”

I pulled her to my chest, and I could feel her heart racing. “Please forgive me,” I said. “I’m a weak man, a stupid, reckless man. I should never have done this.”

“You should…”

I wiped her tears with my thumbs but she pulled away, and she was embarrassed, pulling her t-shirt down properly and pulling on her pumps.

“Let me take you home,” I said.

She shook her head. “I’ll walk.”

“Helen, please…”

“I thought you wanted me.”

Her words hit me in the gut. “My God, Helen, I do want you. This has absolutely no reflection on how much I want to do this.”

“But you won’t.”

“I can’t.”

She took off down the steps and gathered her things. “I hate being a stupid virgin. I hate it.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s ruined everything.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“Yes it has! It’s ruined! I should have just found someone, just done it, I shouldn’t have been such a baby.”

I put my head in my hands, and I hated myself. I absolutely hated myself.

I heard the door go, and jumped up with a start, all set to race after her, but Helen was still glued to the spot with tear-streaked cheeks, her bag slung over her shoulder. I looked to the door and my lungs collapsed.

I recognised Mr Palmer. I’d seen him at parents’ evenings at least once a year for the last six, but I’d never seen him so angry. He looked from Helen to me and back again, with the look of a man who’s lived enough to know when something is amiss.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” he said, and he wasn’t looking at Helen, he was looking at me.

Helen pulled it together like a trooper. “Dad! I, um… we just finished…”

“Just finished what?”

She pointed at the painting. “I was just getting cleaned up. Paint everywhere.”

The guy stared right at me, stared at me like I was a disgusting piece of shit, which I clearly was.

“Mr Palmer, hi, I’m Mr Roberts, we’ve met before.”

“I know who you are,” he said. “Get in the car, Helen.”

“But, Dad, I’m fine…”

“You’re not fine, it’s gone eight a bastard clock and you’re phone is off, and this, whatever the fuck this is, this is not fine.” He was red in the face. “Now get in the fucking car.”

Helen looked at me, and it was pitiful.

“Don’t look at
him
! Just get in the pissing car!”

“Goodnight, Mr Roberts,” Helen said, and her voice was still quaky.

“Goodnight, Helen.”

She didn’t look back, but her Dad did.

And the look in his eyes told me he had my card marked.

Helen

“It’s nothing! I just got paint in my eye, that’s all.” I stared out of the window, watching the High Street pass us by. I was all messed up inside, like my heart had been mashed into pulp. The lump was still in my throat but I breathed through it.

Dad was quiet, and that’s never a good sign. I can handle his mini rants, they explode like a firework and fizzle out in no time, but this… this
brooding
was worse.

“Did he do something?” I felt his eyes on me. “Helen! Did he do something? If he did something to you…”

I managed a fake laugh. “No. Of course he didn’t
do
something to me. He’s my teacher. We painted canvases all day and it was hard work, and I was late and got paint in my eye. I’m sorry you were worried.”

“I’m a lot more pissing worried now.”

“Why?” I forced myself to face him. “Dad, seriously. He’s my teacher. You know, the one you said would be glad when I went to university, the one I need to
grow up and forget about
, the one who’d never possibly be interested in me or my stupid teenage crush, remember?”

“I know what I said, Helen, and I said it for your own good.”

“I’m just a kid to him.” And I meant it. I did feel like a kid to him, just a stupid kid, a stupid
virgin
.

“You’d better be, for his sake.” He pulled onto our estate and parked up in the driveway. “He looked really fucking shifty to me.”

“Everyone looks shifty to you.” I sighed. “I’m sure he was embarrassed, you charging in there like some kind of police raid.”

“You were late. Your phone was off. It’s irresponsible, Helen, what did you think we were going to do? Just wait for you to roll in later? You could have been anywhere for all we knew.”

“I’m eighteen years old, Dad. I was painting. You knew where I was. It’s hardly partying all night and smoking crack.”

“This isn’t a pissing joke.”

“I’m not laughing.” I got out of the car and took a breath, and there was that horrible lurch in my stomach, the one that makes me feel queasy.

Dad got out of the car, and his eyes met mine over the roof. “I don’t want you being on your own with him. No more cosy art nights, Helen, understood?”

“That’s ridiculous!” I folded my arms. “Dad! That’s just crazy.”

“Crazy or not, I know shifty when I see it, and that man was shifty.” He walked past me to the front door.

I followed him inside, and Mum was waiting. Her hair was in a messy bun and she had her fluffy slippers on, hardly at code-red alert level like Dad was. “You found her, then? Told you it would be nothing, George.”

Dad dropped his keys on the table. “Just as well I did.”

Mum pulled a face at the state of me. “What happened to you, love? Are you upset?”

There’s a universal law that when your mum asks you if you’re ok you start crying, even if you were ok before. The lump in my throat turned into a rock, and I couldn’t speak, just dithered my hands in the air like a stupid little girl.

“George! What did you say to her? What did you do?” She headed towards me and I turned from her, trying to blink the stupid tears away. “Take no notice of him, he’s like a bull in a china shop, getting all carried away.”

“I didn’t
do
anything,” Dad said. “There’s something not right about that bloody teacher, Angela. He was shifty.”

I felt Mum’s hand on my shoulder and heard the tut of disdain. “Don’t start, George. You think
everyone’s
shifty.”

That made me laugh, and it came out weird, like a choked little blub.

“Mock all you like, Angela, but I’m telling you now. That man was shifty.”

“Yes, George, I’m sure he was.” She turned me around by my shoulders. “Your dad’s just got himself all worked up, as usual. I told him you were just late.”

“We were painting,” I said in a stupid croaky voice. “I didn’t mean to be late.”

“I know, love. Forget about it now. Your dinner’s in the oven.”

“She isn’t going to be cavorting around with him on her own again, Angela. I don’t trust him.”

She shot him the evil eye. “I told you not to start, George. He’s her
teacher
, for God’s sake.”

“I don’t give a shit who he is, I know a letch when I see one.”

Katie poked her head around the door. “Helen and Mr Roberts, sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G! Ewww!” She giggled and poked her tongue out. I could have slapped her.

“Out!” Dad yelled, and Katie vanished upstairs.

Mum rolled her eyes and took my dinner from the oven. Business as usual, even though my chest ached and my knees were shaking and I felt like the world was ending. I forced down some lamb stew, and it felt like I was chewing bricks and gristle. Mum was smiling, trying to lighten the mood.

“How was the painting?” She looked at Dad. “Did you see Helen’s paintings, George? Were they good?”

“He didn’t notice,” I said. “He was too busy being angry.”

“I saw them!” he protested. “They were good, yeah.”

I landed him a look over my shoulder. “What were they, then? Tell me about one.”

He surprised me. “Stars and mountains and the desert and all that. It looked good.” He sighed. “You’ll understand one day, I’m just doing this for your own good. The world’s a seedy place, Helen, you just don’t see it. Even this town’s going to the dogs, it’s not like it used to be.”

“Mr Roberts isn’t seedy, Dad. He’s a really good person.”

Mum fetched me a juice, set it down on the table and ruffled my hair. “I’m sure he is, love, your dad’s just worried about you. That’s it, isn’t it, George?”

I heard him groan. “Nobody ever listens to me. Try to look out for people and nobody ever appreciates it.” He grabbed a beer from the fridge and left for the other room, and Mum smiled at me.

“It’s all alright, love. Just forget about it now. He’ll calm down.”

I managed a smile but my heart was racing. “Please don’t let him stop me seeing Mr Roberts… it’ll ruin everything, all my art… everything…” The thought made me well up again, and she took my hand across the table.

“You leave your dad to me,” she said.

***

Mark

I’d dug myself a crater so big I couldn’t climb back out of it, and it was horrible at the bottom. I felt like a terrible person and the most vile excuse for a professional. Helen’s father’s eyes had spoken volumes; I was a letch, a pervert, messing around with a vulnerable young girl I should be trying to nurture and take care of.

I’d broken a moral code that ran through my profession, and my very soul. And I’d hurt her. I’d hurt her in a way that made me feel sick to my stomach.

A virgin. I should have known. But I hadn’t known.

I wasn’t sure which was worse — taking aside the moral implication and the ethics I’d committed to as a teacher — getting involved with a girl half my age and taking her innocence, corrupting her before she’d even had chance to grow up for herself, or leading her on and then casting her aside in the name of decency?

I poured myself another glass of wine and stared at my phone. Her dad had seen straight through me, bristling in recognition of my intentions towards his daughter. His teenage virgin daughter.

Christ, I was in the shit up to my neck. But I was more worried about Helen.

Poor sweet Helen and her horror when I’d pulled away.

Sending her a message would be risky, but I took a long slug of wine, then did it anyway.

Are you ok?

Officially the most lame excuse for a text message in the history of mankind.

Helen: Not really.

I’m so sorry.

Another lame excuse for a message.

Helen: I don’t want you to be sorry.

I was trying to formulate a response when the phone pinged again.

Helen: I thought you wanted me.

Helen: I shouldn’t have said anything.

You should have.

Helen: What happens now?

Helen: Is this over?

Helen: Please don’t say this is over.

The conundrum was a tough one. To say it was over and devastate a sensitive young woman in the middle of her final year, or continue with something that should never have started in the first place.

I couldn’t take her virginity, I couldn’t be that man. She was worth so much more.

But I wanted to, my God, I wanted to.

I wanted to make her mine, and show her how beautiful that could be. I wanted to love her, and teach her, and coax out her darkness and drink it from her lips. I wanted to hold her, and press my mouth to hers, and love her so gently.

Helen: ??

I typed out the only reply I could. The only reply I could commit to with any truth in it.

I’m sorry, Helen. I don’t know what else we can do.

I wasn’t expecting her response. Wasn’t expecting it at all.

Helen: Fuck your apology, Mark. And fuck you.

***

Helen

“For fucking real? Are you shitting me? You told him to fuck off?” Lizzie’s face was a picture, and it was almost worth the text to Mr Roberts just to see it. I rolled over in bed and she slipped under the covers with all her clothes on. “I’m impressed, Hels bells. That’s some sassy shit you’ve got going on.”

“It wasn’t sassy,” I said. “I was hurt. I didn’t mean it.”

“You should mean it. What a douche.”

“He isn’t a douche. He’s just…” I struggled for words.

“…A douche?”

“He’s not a douche, Lizzie.”

“Well, he’s sure acting like one.” She draped her arm across my waist. “What kind of guy freaks out over a brand-new pussy? Most guys would snap your hand off.”

My tummy fluttered and pained at the memory. That horrible moment he pulled away from me, just when I thought I had him. “He’s too… decent.”

“Maybe he is gay after all.”

I managed a smile. “I can safely say he’s not gay.”

She rested her head on my shoulder. “So, what happens now?”

I shrugged. “I cry forever. Accustom myself to the spinster lifestyle.”

I could feel her smile on my skin. “Or we could hole up with ice-cream and slushy movies for all time. I’d like that.”

I wondered where he was. How he was feeling. How much relief he was feeling now it was all over. I hadn’t heard a peep from him, not all night, and I’d stayed awake as long as I could. Until I’d realised he definitely wasn’t replying, and then I’d cried myself to sleep. “He thinks I’m a big baby. A stupid little girl.”

“So prove to him you’re not,” she said. I rolled over to face her and she raised her eyebrows. “He’s really got you good, hasn’t he? You look like you’ve been crying for twenty years.”

“I’m just sad. It was like a lifetime’s worth of Christmases, everything I ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of. And then it was gone.”

“Temporarily gone, Hels. Don’t be naive.”

“He was serious. He looked horrified.”

“So? He wants it, you’ve just got to make sure he can’t resist it.”

I shook my head. “I’m done with all the fancy knickers and pretending to be cool.”

“There’s a stronger weapon in your arsenal than those things, my sweet Hels.” Her smile was wicked. Devious.

I was blank, and I must have looked it. “Which is?”

She grinned. “This is why I love you, Helen Palmer, you’re so innocent. Like genuinely. It’s really cute.”

“That just about sums up my entire life
,
thanks very much, Lizzie.”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. He really has got you all grouchy, hasn’t he?” She tutted. “It’s jealousy. That’s the strongest weapon in your arsenal.”

“Jealousy? You think a man like Mr Roberts is going to be jealous?” I scoffed at the absurdity. “Jealous of what, exactly?”