It was boring…damn it was boring. I’d been a college professor, for God’s sake. A Ph-fucking-D in American Literature & Writing. So what the hell was I doing teaching at Our Lady Of Mercy high school? Well, to make a long story short, it was money. Universities don’t pay assistant professors worth a damn and OLM (Old Laid Maids, to the cognoscenti), a conservative, full-student-uniform, old line Catholic private academy, had offered me a cool $10,000 more than Eastman City University to teach their “girls” about The Scarlet Letter and other tripe, oh excuse me, classics. So, I was bored.
Most of these girls were nice enough, maybe too nice, and not overly bright.
They were at OLM because Mom & Dad wanted to keep them safe from boys. Naturally, while their parents paid a hefty tuition to get their girls ready for college and keep their virginities intact, the girls took every opportunity to mess around, both with boys and – oh shock, oh horror – each other. The rumor mill was constantly grinding out new salacious stories. Kirsten G had balled the football star from Cardinal O’Malley High School (better known as “Carnal & Manly”); Alicia S was in a lesbian tryst with her boyfriend’s older sister, and so on. It was enough to make you laugh out loud.
And the faculty — mostly older men, over 50 and married, or nuns & priests. There were only four of us who were under 50 and secular — myself, Sarah Jenkins (biology), Alex Fernandez (Spanish & French), and Molly Poulan (American History). Naturally, rumors had us all linked in a variety of wild sexual relationships. Naturally, they were all, all wrong. Molly was engaged, Alex gay, and Sarah only vaguely interested. We had gone out a few times, even slept together once, but nothing came of it. Me, Dr. Fisher, I was single and lonely and horny and bored.
Until (oh you KNEW there was an “until” didn’t you?) Megan Renzo walked into my English 12 class. She was a transfer from the public schools and acted like she didn’t fit in. The rumor mill had it that she had been “involved” with her music teacher and that the scandal got him fired and her packed off to OLM. Her Daddy was a lawyer and filthy rich, so Megan got in without passing an entrance examination and with the understanding that she would sail through OLM and get shipped off to a nice catholic girls college where she would stay to earn her Mrs.-degree. She had every likelihood to be trouble for us, and she knew it.
