Chapter 1: I Got Caught

None of this would have happened if Paul Murphy hadn’t laughed. He had a loud, kind of snorty laugh, and Miss Hawkins heard it. She got up from her desk and walked toward me. I tried to hide the drawing, but she saw it.

“Nathanial,” she said, “let me see what Paul found so funny.”

That was me, Nathanial Miller, commonly known as Nate, and no, nobody ever called me Nate the Great. I was an eighth-grade student at Millbrook Middle School, and Sharon Hawkins was our American History teacher. Depending on which of the horny boys in our school you asked, she would have been described as “hot”, “cute”, “amazing”, or, as Paul called her, “smokin’”. She was just a year or two out of college, unmarried, and the teacher at Millbrook who was the object of many adolescent boys’ fantasies. And now, I was in big trouble with her.

For a second, I considered trying to eat the evidence, thinking that was better than having her see what I had drawn, but when I hesitated, she reached out and took it from my hand. It was two sheets of notebook paper loosely held together with a paperclip. The first page was a picture I had drawn of Miss Hawkins, sitting at her desk. I should add that in those days, I was a reasonably good artist, a skill that unfortunately did not improve as I grew older. My speciality, if that’s the right word, was caricatures, like the artists who drew the cartoons that I saw on the editorial page of our local newspaper. The drawing was easily recognizable as my favorite teacher, and by itself, it wouldn’t have gotten me in trouble. She might even have liked it.

The problem was the second page, which showed Miss Hawkins in the same position, without the desk, her dress gathered up to her waist, legs wide-spread, and using the pointer that she used to indicate things on the maps in her classroom, to stimulate herself. I even included a healthy crop of pubic hair. When she saw that second image, she looked at me and said, “Come with me.”

I followed her out to the hallway, thinking that she was going to march me to the principal’s office, where I would be expelled and my life would be over. Instead, she stopped and looked around to make sure we were alone. She held the offensive picture up and said, “You’re a good artist, Nathaniel, but this is very inappropriate.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m very sorry I did it.”

“I could get you kicked out of school for drawing this, especially since you were sharing it with other students. But you are a good student, and I don’t want to do that to you. This was just a terrible mistake, agreed?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Have you drawn any other pictures of me like this?”

I couldn’t even look her in the eye as I answered. “No, ma’am. I respect you too much to do that.”

She stood there for a few more seconds, then said, “That’s good to hear, but I still think you deserve some punishment for doing this. Do you take a bus home?”

“No, ma’am. I walk.” Only students who lived more than two miles from school took the bus.

“All right then. I want to see you after school.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I knew what that meant. I was going to get paddled. In those days, teachers were allowed to use corporal punishment, and while only a few took advantage of that rule, Miss Hawkins was known to be one of the harsher administrators of that privilege which seemed odd, considering how young she was. Most of the other spankers in the school were older. Even though she wasn’t very big, it was rumored that she had a surprisingly strong arm, according to some of the students who had gotten up close and personal with one of her two paddles.

I had managed to make it to the middle of the eighth grade without having my butt warmed, but it looked like this was the day my luck ran out. And I knew I deserved it. Even though I was dreading it, in some dark, as yet uncovered corner of my psyche, I was also looking forward to it. Getting punished by the prettiest woman I knew intrigued me.

As I headed back into the classroom, I heard her say, “Don’t even look at Paul. I’ll talk to him later.” Since she had decided not to send me to the office, I thought she would throw my artwork away, but instead, when I looked back, I saw her carefully folding it, as if she wanted to keep it.

I still had three more classes, and lunch, to go before I was to meet my fate. I had no problem avoiding Paul. He realized how much trouble he had gotten me into. But the word had spread. As I tried to relax in the courtyard after lunch, some of my friends surrounded me and started asking a lot of questions.

“Are you gonna get kicked out of school?” Willy asked.

“Nah,” I told him, “but she wants to see me after school, so I think I’m gonna get a licking.”

“Oh shit,” he said, reminding me of what he had experienced a couple of weeks earlier. “Better stuff some toilet paper in your jeans. That woman hits harder than Mickey Mantle.”