Chapter 1

All the boys were big fans of Mrs Baxter, for two obvious and pointed reasons. Liz wasn’t. Mrs Baxter wasn’t a proper teacher, just the school councillor and only three years older than her sister. Liz suppressed a yawn. All this mechanics of sex and stuff was boring. She knew all that from Emma. Emma talked about everything she did, in lurid and descriptive detail. Everything she did seemed to be about sex. Everything sexual it was possible to do with another human being, her sister was into it. Pelvic floor spasms, wet orgasms and getting sperm in places it was never intended to go were, if Emma was to be believed, normal everyday experiences for a senior.

The boys were lapping it up of course, from the super hot young councillor who was rumoured to be sleeping with half the staff and half the seniors, although exactly who wasn’t clear. Even Marco was leaning forward and hanging on every word. Liz answered a question about gametes. Mrs Baxter passed on and probably wouldn’t pick on her again. Marco was the problem. No. She was the problem. Was there really a problem at all? For three years Marco had been her partner. They got on so well they practically read one another’s minds. Right now for example he was noticing how many of the girls weren’t paying as much attention to Mrs. Baxter as they were to the eighteen month old trying to learn to stand without straying out of reach of her left ankle. He was probably also thinking that if he was where little Jack was he’d be able to see up Mrs Baxter’s short dress but those were just normal background boy thoughts and he’d never speak them or act on them.

Liz knew and understood all this, and baby Jack was very cute but something was missing. It hadn’t been missing before and Marco hadn’t changed. He’d grown up a lot over three years of course and he wasn’t the rancid snotty little boy she’d had to put up with initially. He’d grown out of that and was almost a man now. Yet he treated her like a sister, showed no interest in the length of her dress. Didn’t stare at her adoringly the way Tom Boyd was staring at Mrs Baxter. That was good though right? She’d never wanted him to do any of those things. Never wanted him to think of her in that way. So why did it suddenly feel like a betrayal that he didn’t? Mrs Baxter moved on from the sexual mechanics and started asking more interesting questions.

“Why do people have sex at all?”

There were a few spontaneous answers along the lines of,

“Because they enjoy it.”

Tulia put her hand up. She was right in front of Liz. A tall girl with chocolate dark skin and frizzy hair.

“People have sex because they love one another,” Tulia said when Mrs. Baxter looked at her. Her bare arm going back spontaneously around Lorenzo as she put her hand down.

“That’s correct but also an incomplete answer. You have a pet dog at home don’t you?”

Tulia nodded.

“I’m guessing that you treat your dog almost like a person and that you love your dog?”

Tulia nodded again but she and everyone else could see where this was going. Mrs Baxter was famously blunt after all.

“So you love your dog but I’m guessing that you wouldn’t fuck your dog?”

“No.” Tulia shook her frizzy topknot firmly.

There was a ripple of ribs being poked and other expressions between partners to supress a round of giggles that threatened to break out.

“So yes. We express love, through sex. We have babies through sex. Thank you Tom for reminding us of that. Sex is part of our relationships and even if Tulia enjoyed sex with her dog and the dog enjoyed it too, it would change their relationship. Likely not for the better. You can’t be owner and owned and lovers. You can’t be human and animal and lovers.”