Stanley Manley King built his ranch around the buttes on the far edge of his isolated Idaho town and worked it with true puritan zeal until the day he died, when it was sold off by his family to the municipality for a tidy sum. One of his descendants was rumored to have growled “and good riddens to all you inbred, know-nothing, reactionary rednecks” before hopping a plane to his new villa in the Alps. Thus, the King family exits stage East, never to enter into this story again.

King buttes was slightly off the beaten path (and for Idaho that’s saying something) so the town zoning committee scratched their heads for a decade, mired in buyer’s remorse, until the call for a new high school rang out. The previous high school, the church basement, had unfortunately flooded during a freak moonshine incident and was thenceforth considered olfactorily un-conducive to proper learning. (Though it must be noted, propping the basement door ajar rendered sermons much more palatable.)

So, decades later in the present day we find Mary Mincey, junior, former girl scout, five foot six with straight dark hair and an adorable pixie nose daintily making her way up the steps beneath the main entrance labeled S.M. King Buttes High on this fine early October Tuesday morning, absentmindedly thumbing through her open backpack over one shoulder. Did she remember to bring her essentials today? Let’s see. Books? Phone? Notebooks with wide margins to inspire creativity? Pens, nice thick ones? All good. Finally, her fingers grazed the outlines of a little plastic bottle of cooking oil and a pack of cigarettes. Excellent. Today was going to be a very good day indeed, Mary surmised as a stiff cold autumn breeze snuck its way up the stairs, up her long shapely legs, up her modest knee-length skirt and up her most private demesne. Shivering a bit yet inspired, Mary slowed her ascent until she felt a second breeze picking up, then bounded the last couple of steps.

“One ... two” she mentally counted to herself, feeling the fabric bounce up slightly higher off her thighs on the second skip “- and-a-three!” She finished the movement at the top of the stairs with a backwards bump of her posterior, lifting the skirt just high enough for the breeze to catch and lift in a fluttering cone about her slim waist for a full second before rippling back down into place. From above it couldn’t have looked like more than an innocent young girl skipping ecstatically to class but all those below got a full view of Mary’s globular buttocks, unencumbered by any hint of underwear but adorned with the most thrilling goosebumps. Congratulating herself on her Olympically-precise performance, she ducked beneath the suspicious glare of Mrs. Tanner the ancient history teacher (known as such because she was ancient and taught history, natch) and hurried inside.

First period was math, with Mr. Long sighing as usual at his impossible task of cramming pre-calculus into sleepy teenagers’ brains. Mary did her best to look awake even as her mind busied itself surreptitiously scoping out her classmates. John in the seat next to her was usually good for a bit of harmless mischief but today he seemed distracted, and it certainly wasn’t by Mr. Long’s divisions. She followed his gaze a couple of seats up to Sarah Sourly, well-noted good girl and total bitch dozing off in the front row. Sarah wasn’t the type to give any boy the time of day for fear of tarnishing her sparkling reputation as heavenbound innocent lamb of Reverend Pokely’s flock, but whatever she was dreaming about it must’ve been good stuff. The fabric of her sensible cardigan stood out in twin stiff pebbles atop her barely discernible breasts. Seeing the boys’s attention would be occupied a bit, Mary instead busied herself sprucing up the margins of her notebook until Mr. Long did his rounds to inspect their work.

“Mr. Long” she intoned in a singsong voice, cocking her head to let her long dark bangs caress her delicate jaw line “I was wondering if you could help me with this equation?”

Her fingers drifted to indicate a decidedly nonmathematical arrangement. The first term was a doodle of a curvy feminine midsection with exaggerated labia peeking from a dark penciled squiggle of pubic hair and an anime-inspired drop of dew hanging from them. After a plus sign followed a stick figure, featureless except for the gigantic and remarkably detailed penis sticking out from the y-intersection of its legs, complete with heavy, wrinkled testicles adorned with little commas to indicate their hairiness. Mary prided herself on the accuracy of her artistic depictions. The two were equaled to a composite of a female stick figure, boobs hanging, bent over and being stuffed from behind by a male figure with a thick schlong disappearing impossibly into her one-dimensional torso. Mr. Long admired her handiwork but shook his head, drawing his lips into a sorrowful smirk.

“I’m sorry Mary, that result just can’t be obtained under the circumstances.”

Then he continued to calmly amble among the desks, inspecting other students. Fuming, Mary finished off the day’s exercises by the time the bell rang, wondering which of her friends had gotten to him first. Some days it seemed she lost the race before it even started. No matter.

“Hey, Mary, can you run interference for us?” she heard as she walked into the hall and turned to see her friend Daisy, a statuesque blonde senior clutching a gigantic backpack adorned with more school spirit trinkets than half a football rally. It helped her reputation with the more sports-oriented teachers and parents and more importantly it hung low enough on her back to conceal the waistband of her thong panties peeking out of her favorite jeans. That is, until Daisy wanted to catch someone’s attention and hiked up the backpack ... it never failed.

Mary nodded and they took the scenic route to the second floor past a nearly abandoned stairwell on the far side of the gym. As they approached, John’s figure ducked quickly into it. They continued casually strolling until they reached it, at which point Daisy cast a look around for hostile figures of authority but seeing only Miss Clearwater the chemistry teacher smiling knowingly at them, dashed into the darkness under the stairs after John. Mary took up her post by the stairs, pretending to fool with her phone for the next few minutes. Like clockwork, as the warning bell rang, Daisy re-emerged, smoothing her neat, respectable top and licking and smacking her lips.

“How is he today?” asked Mary casually as they walked to chemistry class.

“Thick. And a little bit saltier than usual.”

They giggled in unison and hurried off, John exiting the stairwell whistling innocently in the opposite direction. Chemistry was next, and they both spent a thoroughly enjoyable period being educated by Miss Clearwater both in the properties of acids and the arts of seduction. Miss Clearwater had the misfortune to hail from that mysterious cesspit of ungodly corruption known only as “back east” and was thus tolerated but not quite welcome in town even after three years of teaching. Where exactly her particular “back east” was located was a closely guarded secret but the general consensus situated her shady past somewhere beyond Montana and even both Dakotas, which of course strayed dangerously close to being on the wrong side of the Mississippi. Her accent was as crisp as her makeup and sounded suspiciously (though no-one would be so cruel as to voice such slander in front of the poor being) like those people on tha teevee supposedly representing the east coast, the backest of back-easts. Her appearance in town had caused quite a panic among the respectable wives’ gossip circles, though she soon gained an inexplicably sterling reputation among the town’s males.

The tall thirty-something brunette had a habit of slowly, gradually wetting and pouting her full ruby lips at the oddest moments, most often when conversing directly with some fresh-faced, innocent farmboy, with the invariable effect of causing him to stammer helplessly and lose his train of thought, at which she would merely smile and wait for him to recover his senses. Her hips, clad in an otherwise very conservative long black skirt, would tilt imperceptibly as she paced between the tables, suddenly intruding a very feminine hip into the field of vision of some helpless young buck whose dreams that night would make for a very guilty next Sunday in church. Mary and Daisy were somewhat jealous of her influence over their own targets but also knew themselves outclassed and resigned themselves merely to observe. They had their own tricks all right, but oh, so much still to learn.

Miss Clearwater’s neat, professional white blouse also occasionally underwent the strangest transformations during some classes like today’s. The best students sat in front, as usual. There, the blouse remained neatly buttoned up to her neck. As she advanced toward the back of the room where the troublemakers sat, one button after another would magically come undone. The teacher would look out the window for a second or would twist as she walked, ostensibly to better navigate the lab tables, and when she turned again another couple of inches of skin would be bare. By the fourth row of tables in the back her lacy bra was clearly visible, propping up two succulently massive orbs of soft flesh – and she always, always, always found cause to bend over a desk to better direct her charges. John and his friends ran a stable betting pool as to the color of her next brassiere. How and when exactly this prestidigitation was achieved was a mystery to the few she allowed to notice it, since she could never be seen to actually touch the buttons – yet down they went, and back up as she advanced once more to retake her place at the head of the class, buttoned to her neck so tightly that not even the staunchest church-ladies could object.

Mary’s third class before lunch was gym. She hurried to the locker room and, like all the other well-bred nice girls, slipped her gym shorts on under her skirt before removing it. Most did this in shame of others seeing their panties. A few, like Mary, did it so no-one would confirm her absence of panties. Coach Woodrow was in high spirits today, putting the class through their jumping jacks and sit-ups before finally allowing them ten minutes of shooting hoops. Mary managed to catch his eye a couple of times and thought she could spot the little twinkle of mischief which indicated he might be prompted to action. Back in the locker room she waited for the class to leave, propped the door open so she was barely visible from where the coach would pass by and fished a cigarette out of her pack. A smell of smoke alerted her that she had competition. Behind her, the Starling twins, curly-haired and athletic, were both puffing their freshly lit filtered smokes and raising their eyebrows at her. She twirled her own cigarette in her fingers and considered her options – too long, it seems. The door opened fully and coach Woodrow stood there, arms crossed over his chest, observing the three girls. He kept his voice low.

“Now, girls, you know very well smoking is forbidden on school grounds. I’m afraid I’ll have to give you both a very harsh talk. Mary, since you didn’t light up yet you can go this time. Just don’t let me catch you doing it again.”

“Yes, sir.” Mary dutifully bowed her head in resignation and exited, seeing the twins already flipping their t-shirts over their heads out of the corner of her eye. The heavy door closed and locked. Ah, well, it was hard competing with those two when they got together. She replaced the cigarette in her pack, rearranged her bangs for maximum cuteness and headed for lunch, sitting at her usual table with her friends and chattering loudly in the crowded hall for fifty minutes about that emptier than void absolute nothing which is the exclusive territory of teenage girls’ conversations. English class was next with Tommy and Mr. Hardy, so she paused in the bathroom to make the adequate preparations. Then she walked carefully with small tense steps into class and sat primly in her seat on one side of the room. Tommy sat next to her. He was a sophomore but a cute one with his perpetually mussed MTV-ish hair and slim but wiry build and best of all he put no stock in the reverend’s talk of sins and vices.