Chapter 4

“Matt...” Ms. Winters stopped me as I filed out of her classroom along with the rest of my classmates. “Would you mind helping me with something?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. She taught tenth grade English composition and seemed like a pretty good teacher. I liked her okay, but it wasn’t like I really knew the woman or anything.

“Great,” she said with a warm smile. “Hold on a second, let me put this away.”

Ms. Winters always seemed nice enough and I had the feeling sometimes that she liked me more than anyone else in her class. I’m not sure why though; I didn’t really do anything much different from the rest of her students, but I often caught her looking at me and when I did she would usually smile and it wasn’t a big deal. Ms. Winters had that friendly sort of personality, I guess, and for being about thirty-five or almost forty maybe, she always looked nice too. She didn’t try to dress like she was a student instead of a teacher, which should be a no-brainer, but I had to deal with my mom every single day.

So when I say Ms. Winters always looked nice, I mean she always looked normal, and that was a relief. She wore modest clothes and her black hair had just a little gray in it, but always looked great, in my opinion. She had thick, wavy hair and liked to pin it up, usually. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup either, just enough and not too bright. Some lipstick and a bit of eye shadow to go with the gray skirt and white blouse she wore on that particular day.

Her matching blazer hung over the back of her chair and I waited while she put it on, admiring her body the way teenage boys do. I couldn’t help it. If a woman was within fifty feet of me, I had to check her out, and Ms. Winters had nice tits and definitely a nice butt and hips. She wasn’t slender and petite like my mom, not too many women in their thirties are, but my teacher had pretty sweet body all the same, and I knew I wasn’t the only guy in school who thought so.

“We’re going to sell some of our old books at the Book Fair this Saturday,” Ms. Winters explained as we left the classroom. “Have you heard about that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The public library thing. Right?”

“Uh-huh.” She smiled at me as her heels clicked on the stairs. The school always emptied quickly after the last bell, especially the second floor where her classroom was located.

“Can I put my stuff in my locker?” I asked, since we’d reached the first floor and it wasn’t very far from the stairwell.

“Sure,” she agreed. “Anyway, I volunteered and so I’m bringing the books home with me so I can make a list and sort them a little bit. I thought I’d bring half of them tonight and the other half tomorrow.”

“Okay.” I put my books away and grabbed my backpack.

“You don’t take the bus, do you?” Ms. Winters asked, sounding as if she’d just thought of that.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “But I walk sometimes anyway. It’s only a couple miles, so I don’t mind.”

That wasn’t a lie either. I did like to walk and it only took an hour to get home, not even that long usually. That had become especially true over the last couple weeks because Mom had started living as Stacy again. Full time, I mean. Like she’d taken a few weeks off, but now wanted to make up for the lost time. I tried not to be home alone with her too much, which really sounds bad, but I was afraid the alternative would be worse.

“Hmmm...” Ms. Winters pursed her lips as I closed my locker. “I should have thought of that sooner. I’m sorry, Matt.”

“Nah,” I shrugged it off with a smile. “It’s okay.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, walking beside me towards the stairs and the basement storage area. “You help me get the books to my house and then I’ll give you a ride home. How does that sound?”

“Ummm...” I almost frowned, but stopped myself because I didn’t want her to feel worse than she did.

I wasn’t frowning because I didn’t want a ride, but only because of the possibility that Ms. Winters might want to come inside my house and say hi to my mom or something. She’d meet Stacy and I had no idea what Mom might doing or how she’d be dressed. That could be really bad for a lot of reasons. Teachers were probably sort of obligated to report strange things involving their students, right? Finding my mom dressed like a fourteen-year-old cheerleader and giving a lap dance to some college guy she’d happened to meet at the Seven-Eleven would definitely fall into the strange category!

I know because that’s what she’d been doing the day before when I got home from school. Except she hadn’t been dancing, my mom had been riding a fat cock belonging to some junior college guy on the living room floor. And she hadn’t been dressed like a cheerleader, either. Mom had been dressed like a Girl Scout, green socks and all, happily earning her “ ... fuck-me-hard! merit badge,” as she’d told me before I’d gone upstairs to jerk off.

So, I never knew what to expect when I got home and...

“Alright? Good, it’s all settled then,” Ms. Winters said, making my decision for me and I didn’t know how to change her mind.

I’d have to do a lot of praying.

“Say, Matt...” she said slowly as we packed old textbooks into cardboard boxes. “You seem very quiet in school. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a shrug. “I’m fine.”

I smiled, but my cheeks were growing warm and I started feeling a stomach ache coming. I’d figured on just carrying some boxes out to her station wagon, not spending half an hour alone with Ms. Winters in the basement with nothing else to do other than talk about me. I wondered if it was totally obvious that something was wrong at home and I really hoped it wasn’t.

“You know that you can always talk to me, right?” she said, “Or any of the other teachers if you want. We’re not just here to give you homework, you know.”

I kept trying to act normal, but I was ready to bolt if she pushed any harder than that. I forced myself to smile and somehow meet her gentle eyes. “Thanks, Ms. Winters. Yeah. It’s okay. I’m just kinda quiet, I guess.”

“Hmmm...” She relaxed noticably and returned my smile. “I guess so, but you’re such a handsome boy, Matt. I’m surprised you don’t have a girlfriend yet.”

“Um...” I really blushed then. Talk about changing the subject! A teacher asking me about my nonexistent love life seemed super strange. Especially since she was a woman and a very attractive one, too.

“You don’t have one,” Ms. Winters said. “Do you?”

“No,” I admitted reluctantly, wishing she’d talk about the weather instead. “Not yet.”

“It’s their loss,” she said with a sigh, looking down at the books and sparing my embarrassment. “If I was your age...”

“Um, I think this one is full,” I said. Her words reminded me instantly of my mom.

“ ... I’d probably ask you out on a date,” Ms. Winters continued with a soft laugh.

“Oh.” I looked up and caught her with a sweet, almost shy smile playing across her pretty face. We had a two second staring contest and I felt the small hairs on my arms standing up. There was some sort of tension in the air, electric and exciting, and something tugged at my gut, something in her warm brown eyes.

“It’s alright,” she said slowly, with a tiny nod like she’d felt it too. “I just want to get to know you better. This is enough for today, right?”

“I hope so,” I agreed with a hard swallow. She looked apologetic, but we were probably thinking about two different things.

I carried the boxes upstairs and they were kind of heavy. Ms. Winters should have gotten the football team to help her or something. Those guys had muscles and liked to lift heavy stuff for fun. I didn’t complain though and she went outside to get her car and drive it closer to the doors. That gave me a minute or two by myself, a little time to think, but it didn’t do me any good. Soon enough we were alone together in her car.

“Oops...” Ms. Winters shook her head as we had to stop for a train crossing the road in front of us. “I hope this isn’t one of the long ones.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, sitting in the front seat of her Volvo and looking out the window. It looked like a long one and they always went slow through town.

Our drive seemed long enough already. I’d just sat there stiffly, unable to relax and not knowing what to say. She didn’t seem very much like my teacher anymore. Ms. Winters had become a stranger once we’d left the school. I mean, I’d never seen her outside the classroom. It felt weird.

“When I was your age and dating my husband, we used to try and get stuck like this.”

“You’re married?” I asked, maybe kind of rudely. “I mean, um ... Why?”

“I used to be married,” she said with a shrug. “Anyway, back when we were in high school, if we had to stop for a train or even a red light we’d always start making out.”

“Oh.” I looked away from her smile and the car felt a hundred degrees warmer suddenly.

“Matt?” Ms. Winters said softly, and I jumped slightly when I felt her right hand sliding across my shoulders, behind my head as she leaned closer.

“Ummm...” I cleared my throat and looked at her, blinking as I felt her fingernails tickling my neck

“I like you a lot,” she whispered, licking her red lips and gently urging me to lean towards her. “I want you to like me too, okay?”