29. Oliver

TWENTY-NINE

Oliver

Later that day, I’m sitting in my office, working on our Professional Development calendar, outlining the things we need to work on as a school. After the chaos of last night and this morning, I need a mindless organizational task to keep me occupied, so I consider the scope and sequence of where each session should fit, copying and pasting into an itemized list. Lists are good. Lists are dependable. Lists are safe. Lists won’t get me fired.

I hear a knock on my door.

My heart stops. That brat knows she’s not supposed to come see me like this during the school day, but I want to see her, but it’s not what we agreed on. In fact, we explicitly said we won’t do this ?—

My mom’s head pops through the door.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, relieved and only slightly disappointed. “Hi, Ma.”

“Hi, anak ,” she tells me, walking over to my desk to give me a kiss on the forehead, as if I’m still ten years old. “I was bored this morning, so I cooked sinigang . I brought for you and Georgia.” She holds up two separate plastic bags in her hands.

“Ma, for the thousandth time, there is nothing going on between me and Georgia, and it’s extremely uncomfortable that you brought her food, like really Ma, are you serious?—”

“Oh, please,” she scoffs, placing one bag down on my desk. “I’ll just bring it up to her myself. Bahala ka sa buhay mo ,” she sniffs, turning on her heel to walk out with the other bag.

I launch myself out of my chair and move to stand between her and the door. “You cannot be seen going into her classroom,” I tell her, panicked.

She eyeballs me. “Why not?”

“My mother cannot be seen giving a home cooked meal to the woman at work that I’m?—”

Ma’s face transforms into something mischievous, looking eerily similar to Izzy at the moment. She bounces on her toes. “The woman you’re what, Ollie?!”

I bang the back of my head against the door. “Nothing. Ma, just… just give it to me,” I tell her resignedly. “I’ll… I’ll bring it to her when I see her tonight. We can eat it together.”

She squeals, clapping her hands like a psychopath. “I knew it; I knew it, Ollie; she’s so wonderful, and you were so happy around her; it was so nice to see.” She kisses me on the cheek. “I’m so happy for you, Ollie. You deserve it. You work so hard.”

“Ma, just don’t… please don’t tell anyone,” I say, rubbing my eyes.

“I won’t, I won’t,” she nods vigorously. I know, then, that in about fifteen minutes I’ll be bombarded with texts from every single one of my family members.

“Please just go, Ma. I have a lot of work to do,” I say, leaning over to give her a kiss on the forehead.

“Okay, okay, anak . Give Georgia my love. And don’t forget the patis ,” she says, walking out the door .

I walk over and sit at my desk, put my head down, and groan.

I make it out of work a little past six o’clock and all but sprint to Georgia’s place, forgetting the sinigang container.

Within five minutes of her opening the door, I’m inside her. I have her pinned up against the other side, the both of us still fully dressed, me in my suit, pants open in front, her dress pulled up, panties hanging off one foot. Her nails scratching my neck as I thrust. “Harder,” she groans.

“I missed this,” I pant into her neck, like the pathetic idiot I am.

She laughs, and I feel it around my dick. “It’s been like, twelve hours.”

“Eleven hours and fifty-eight minutes too long,” I say, shoving my hand between us to rub her greedy clit.

“What are those two extra minutes for?” she gasps.

“Recovery time,” I tell her, biting down when I feel her coming around me, then desperately emptying inside her not three seconds after.

We slide down to the floor. She lays horizontally, resting her head on my thigh while I sit slumped against the wall, gasping for air.

She turns her head after a few minutes, looking down at my pants. “We ruined your suit.”

I wind my fingers through her hair, combing the strands. “Worth it.”

“It’s Friday. Did you have any plans?”

I lift one of her hands and kiss every individual finger. “You.”

She smiles, liking that. “I don’t think we should trap ourselves in a sex dungeon all night. We should go out. ”

“I can’t,” I say, gesturing at my suit. “Suit’s ruined. No extra clothes.”

“What were you going to do tomorrow morning, then?”

I grab her by the hair, forcing her mouth onto my rapidly hardening cock. “Who said I was leaving tomorrow morning?”

“Of course you hate horror movies,” she tells me, as we sit naked on the Porn Couch, eating ice cream for dinner.

It’s now tomorrow night.

“Of course you love horror movies,” I shoot back.

She shrugs. “Let me guess. You’re a documentary guy.”

I shrug. “I enjoy learning about things.”

“You mean you like that you know how the documentary is going to end,” she says, like the brat she is. “Because it’s about an event that’s already happened?—”

I bite her boob. This gives me an idea with melted ice cream…

“No,” she says, reading my face and shoving me away. “I need a break, you monster. Plus, I’m not trying to get a UTI.”

I apologize to my dick for her.

“We’re watching a horror movie,” she says suddenly. She grabs the remote and pulls something up called Paranormal Activity.

I raise an eyebrow. “Really? Paranormal?”

She pulls a blanket over us. “In case you get scared,” she says.

I scoff. “O-kay.”

An hour later, both of us are under the blanket.

“What the fuck, Georgia?” I whisper hysterically, my heart beating so fast I feel like I’m going to go into cardiac arrest. “How can you enjoy this?”

She squeals with glee. “I don’t know. I’ve never actually seen this part. Why are you whispering?”

“You don’t even watch the movie?!” I am shouting in my loudest possible whisper voice. “No wonder you love horror movies. You don’t watch the scary parts!”

“Told you it was scary,” she says, peeking up over the blanket, squeaking, then throwing it back over her again.

“It’s not scary,” I mutter, choosing to remain under the safety of the blanket. “It’s fucking terrifying.”

We go to bed with every light in her apartment on.

We fuck around. It’s quite nice. It’s not bad, despite the James Bond level sneaking around Georgia has to do to get into my apartment once Eloise comes back. Despite the mild panic attack I have each time. Despite the twenty feet of distance I keep between us at school at all times.

Is it worth it, though?

It might be, especially after certain moments, like when Georgia forces me to leave our sex dungeon to go on random adventures around the city. Staten Island Ferry. A spa on Governor’s Island. Fun bars in the West Village and in Bed-Stuy.

It could be worth it, especially after one Saturday on the train home from the Bronx Zoo, when we run into a massive group of twenty-somethings dressed in full formalwear and giant headphones, inexplicably dancing in the subway car.

Georgia grins, taking in the group, silently dancing to the beat of the same song. The headphones they are wearing are all apparently linked via Bluetooth to one DJ’s phone. They are swinging around on poles, dancing on the seats. Georgia informs me that this is called a “silent disco”.

“It’s funny watching them do this with no music,” she tells me.

She laughs when one of them hands us two pairs of headphones. Georgia takes one and wears them and takes the other and plops them on my head. The sound of a heavy, driving EDM song blasts into my ears, and together we join the rave on the train. My cheeks hurt from smiling. Georgia procures a pair of sunglasses that light up around the edges. She makes me wear them.

Eventually, we approach our stop, and I look at Georgia.

“Please.” I see her mouth form the words. We pass our stop. She is radiant, and we end up all the way over in Bushwick.

Somewhere along the way, Georgia learns that the girl who handed us the headphones is a birthday girl.

“Come with us,” the birthday girl tells us.

Georgia looks up at me with pleading eyes, and I can’t help but smile again. And that’s how we end up dancing in a warehouse filled with pink glitter, house music, and scantily clad acrobats until four o’clock in the morning. This is worth the panic attack I have when we have to sneak back into my apartment at an hour when the families with children are starting to wake up.

It’s probably worth it when we order food and eat in her bed, or naked on the Porn Couch, watching old episodes of the Jersey Shore.

“So let me get this straight,” I ask her after pausing the show. “The girls wrote Sam an ‘anonymous’ letter, one that was very clearly written by her housemates, about Ron dicking around?

She nods seriously. “Multiple people in the house know, Oliver,” she says, with a mouth full of pad Thai. “Therefore, she should know the truth.”

Definitely worth it, when I find myself looking down at her on her knees, both my hands wrapped in her hair as I thrust into her mouth. And another time, when I wrap her ponytail around my hand and forcibly yank it back, Georgia screaming as I fuck her from behind, the thumb of my other hand wedged firmly in her ass. And yet another, when she lets me tie her wrists to her headboard, and I edge her for hours.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

I’m not quite sure it’s worth it, though, when Superintendent Daniels strides into my office with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. “Hello, Oliver,” he tells me, sitting down in the chair across from my desk.

My stomach becomes a lead weight in my body. Well, this is it. They know about us. We’re both fired. Well, now maybe we can start that OnlyFans channel Georgia was talking about; principal punishes hot teacher ? —

“Oliver, I’m here to commend you on what a fantastic job you’re doing,” he tells me.

“Excuse me?” I am legitimately confused.

“Everyone at the district loves what you’re doing. Your middle of year screener scores project that your state test scores will exceed last year’s success rate.” He smiles, face shining. “I haven’t heard a peep from any family from that one classroom. You’ve kept them all and their teacher under control. Although I don’t know how you do it,” he says, winking at me. “If it were me in your shoes, I wouldn’t be able to resist taking her over my knee?—”

“That’s enough, Superintendent Daniels,” I tell him firmly, thinking of how I did just that earlier this week. We really have gotten away with it. “Remember what I said about talking about my staff inappropriately. ”

He chuckles. “Yes, yes, so proper, Oliver. You’re so… tense. Lighten up a little.”

I tap my foot, impatient and wanting him to leave now that I know I still have a job. “Is there a particular reason for this visit, Mr. Daniels? I have several classroom observations scheduled today.”

“No, no, no particular reason,” he says, ignoring my urgency and leaning back in his chair. “Just wanted to let you know you’ve impressed me lately. Have you taken any further consideration to my offer? Want to come be my deputy?”

“Well, I wanted to talk to you first.” I had this conversation with Georgia the other day, wanting to know her thoughts on the matter. She told me I should probably find out more about what my day to day would look like. “I wanted to know more about what the position would entail. Is it all about rubbing shoulders with the mayor? Shaking hands with the Chancellor at Tweed?” I ask, referring to the courthouse in the Financial District that serves as DOE headquarters.

He laughs out loud, spraying my desk with spittle. “No, no Oliver, don’t be ridiculous.” He eyes me. “That’s my job.” He smiles silkily. “No, Oliver, what you would be doing would be… well, it would be more of whatever you’re doing right now.” He really has no idea . “But with principals, instead of teachers. You’d oversee all the schools in the district. Supervise all the principals. Make curricular decisions for the district. Be my right-hand man. Get your hands dirty. I’d leave you to it, of course. I trust you to get things done properly.”

I like the sound of it. I’d be meeting my goals. I’d still be doing real, tangible work. I’d be far away from Georgia, and we wouldn’t have to spend every day at work together pretending as if we’re complete strangers. And it sounds like he would leave me alone to do what I need to do. He’d be out of my hair. “I just might like that, Mr. Daniels. ”

He grins and claps his hands together. “Great, Oliver. Well, the position is yours. Just get through the winter. The spring is when I’ll get my new budget line, and I’ll be able to open the position for you and get you paid.”

“Got it, Mr. Daniels. I’m honored to have this opportunity. Thank you.” I stand and shake his hand.

He salutes on his way out of my office. “Great job, Oliver.”

We just have to get through the winter then. Then it will probably be worth it.