I love teaching Language Arts at Capton Springs Middle School because kids that age are still kids. The girls still have their dolls on their shelf and the boys still sing in Music. They still like good poems.

My friend, Cindi Barton, teaches science. We’re the same age, but she took a few extra years to figure out what she was doing. Too many collegiate extracurricular activities, her explanation. In the faculty section of our yearbook, she’s the one who looks like a student. I’m the one who looks like an English teacher.

Cindi has a million great qualities. Upbeat. Generous. Picks up on how I’m doing and tells me what I need to know. Says how it is with her. Gives me a little kiss when I need one. I’ve known her forever, ever since we started teaching together, anyway.

A thing about Cindi, however -- to put it simply -- is that she’s somewhat indiscriminate. A guy’s nice, fun, lonely, whatever, and she leads him off to bed. I warn her it works against her because they don’t have to earn it. She says they shouldn’t have to.

Does it matter? Not really. It’s my job as her friend, though, to help her stay safe, her “verbal detective” she calls me. There was this guy at Buffalo Wild Wings who told us he flies 737s for United. Big-time pilot, I could see Cindi thinking. He’ll fly me to Rio and we’ll do it on the beach. I’m the one who figured out that actually he flies IN a 737 -- the preposition makes all the difference -- as an attendant. Friends watch out for each other.

Cindi doesn’t think I’m a prude because I’m not as forward. She just says that my style costs me because guys give up. The way I see it, though, it’s better to wish for more -- some, anyway -- than to wish you’d had less. Sort of.

I’m just not a risk-taker. Cindi puts her IRA into startups; mine goes into school district bonds. I’ll retire comfortably, I hope, and she’ll be either destitute or a billionaire. Maybe we’ll share a place someday, my place or hers, depending on the market.

Cindi says that we’ll just hang in there until the right two guys appear. Did you catch that? “We” and “two.” That’s how you know you’ve got a friend.

Josh Harrison was just another kid in my fourth period, one to whom I’d never given much thought until one Friday.

Teachers can’t go walking down the hall with cleavage showing, but helping a student at his desk, what he sees is my business. To eighth-grade boys, we’re interesting, at least compared with what they’re supposed to be learning. No guy would eye me twice on the street, though, as there are more-interesting girls with lower necklines.

What was a dead giveaway was Josh crossing his legs.

I suggested he stop by my desk after class for a fresh worksheet, and had him stand beside me while I showed him how to do it, taking care not to notice him eyeing the shape of my nipples, another teacher no-no, but sometimes broken.

I was rather sure he noticed, however, by the drop of his hand over the front of his jeans.

That night I dreamt of being alone with a student in a cabin in the Rockies, me without my blouse. He undoes my bra. Unfortunately, however, I then woke up, but as fresh as my dream was, I delightfully imagined some mere with the help of my own doings.

Cindi and I played tennis the following day. We’re fairly well matched.

, but she tends to charge the net too much, allowing me the easy lob. She says that I tend to be too predictable, me always going for pat returns.

She beat me, 12 to 9. We don’t play regular sets; we just have fun.

Over coffee -- the loser pays and the winner chooses the expensive latte -- I told her the whole Josh thing, about him peeking and me reacting. There are only so many teachers’ tales, so we just recycle them.

When I admitted my dream -- I didn’t say “masturbated, but she knew -- she grinned.

“Just ruminating,” I clarified, the English teacher.

“You’d not be the first teacher to provide a little extra instruction.”

Cindi says that masturbation helps our complexions, but she’s maybe not correct, apps mine’s not great. She says that if you’re lesbian, the two of you can do it together without becoming ones, but we’ve never. She was in Girl Scouts and me, Campfire, but we both learned before then at sleepovers.

When I say we’ve never, what I mean is that we’ve never done it to each other, but for sure we sometimes do it next to each other. The first time was when she got trapped at my place because her car battery died, why she then joined AAA. We were in my bed, but didn’t touch each other where we shouldn’t, just the sides of our hips communicating.

Sunday morning. Grading papers bored me stiff, so I called Cindi to see if she was up for a rematch, and on the way, I had to ask, “Any particular teacher?”

“You know Zak Gaston?” not answering my question.

“Yeah.”

“Well this teacher asked him to help her arrange her book closet, and got on the stool and had him hold her, and when she stepped down, he ended up around her. She told him she didn’t mind.”

“Jessica,” I supplied. Jessica Thomas, PE, who stands, hands behind her back, during hall duty, an opportunity not missed by half of her boys. You can see them queue up.

“PE teachers don’t have books,” noted Cindi. “He was restacking ‘Our Living World’,” the one that calls evolution a theory.”

Thinking of Jessica during fourth period led me to stand at my doorway as Josh passed by.

Both sides, even.

That night I dreamt again, this time getting off the boy’s pants before waking up and once more taking things into my own hand.

Saturday, Cindi and I played tennis and I mentioned that I’d again dreamed.

“They say when you dream about the same thing twice, it’s going to happen.”

“Hardly.”

“Teachers can sleep with their students in France, you know,” she noted. “It’s perfectly normal, like eating snails and swimming topless.”

Cindi knows I like to write, but thinks I need better plots. Her stab at the latter, “The Four Poster”

“This perv ties this cheerleader to this four-poster bed and makes her come with a movie camera going. Not her fault, right? Then she escapes and ties him to the same bed, makes him take Viagra, but won’t let him finish. He begs, but nope! At last she unties a hand and films him masturbating, but he’s too horny to care. So now they each have something on the other. The story ends with them taking turns tying each other to the four-poster. Pretty good story, right?”

“Good enough for the Internet,” I concede.

“We should buy a bed like that, you think? Plus a trailer. My place for a week, yours the next.”

“Kevin has Gym with Josh,” Cindi informed me. “I’ll ask what he sees, tell him you’re interested.”

“What?”

“I won’t use your name, just say ‘a teacher friend.’ Kevin’s gay and owes me for letting him use my closet with his friend.”

Later she reported that Kevin said that Josh looks ripe, and good luck to her teacher friend.

Jabber from Cindi: “Ever play Thirty Seconds of Bliss? Everybody draws a card and then you draw one more. If it’s red, the highest boy and the lowest girl go into a closet. If it’s black, then it’s the highest girl and the lowest boy. Top and bottom, get it? Everybody counts 30 backwards and they open the door. It’s pretty funny.”

Cindi says that when she took an art class at college, the instructor had her be the model. Fortunately, nobody in the class was much of an artist, so at the art show, no one could really tell it was her.

Cindi passed me a clipping. “Check this out. It’s from Harvard, or someplace.”

“Shakeshaft, Carol (2004) ‘Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature’, US Dept Ed says that 10.7 percent of K-12 girls and 8.4 percent of boys have had a sexual experience with a school employee.”

“We’re like a couple of tarts, reading this stuff,” I pointed out. “Teacher tarts.”

But OK, Cindi, I decided. I get your point, not be such a wallflower. I’ll give it a try, but only so far, and I’ll not tell you so when it doesn’t work out, I’ll not have to explain what went wrong.

I cornered Josh on Wednesday to ask about progress on his writing assignment. “I can’t give you an extension, but I could give you some pointers to move it along.”

He didn’t seem unhappy with the offer, as maybe he’d see more bra.

“Tomorrow after school, OK?”

Cindi caught my blush the next day, me a bit distracted, I suppose, as in first period I couldn’t remember who wrote “Bless Me, Ultima.”

Over lunch, Cindi slipped me a half-full box of condoms. “Had some in my purse,” to deprive me of a last-minute excuse.

Sixth period was basically diagramming sentences. I’d read one; they’d discuss. Saying it helps them be decisive. I was getting tingly.

And after seventh -- diagramming again --, there was Josh, the door closing behind him, thanks to the Fire Marshal.

I cleared my throat. “Thanks for coming, Josh,” and went over the assignment until the hallway cleared.

“You know, I’ve got a lit book at my place that might help,” previewing the view he hoped for.

“Sure, Ms. Rennick.”

I gave him a stack of magazines to carry to the car, reaching around him to brush against the back of his hands.

I closed the garage door with the remote so no one could see us.

Once inside, I slipped off my shoes and told him to do the same. Saying I needed to fix my hair, I went to my room and changed into the bra Cindi gave me for my birthday, and a blouse that didn’t mask it much.

At the fridge, I opened a Sprite and showed him my refrigerator magnets. “The Grand Canyon has 3,000,000 years of geology,” I noted, having no actual idea about the number. As we chatted about Carlsbad Caverns -- It’s lit up, I informed him – my breast was against his arm. By Crater Lake, it was back and forth, and by Grand Canyon, I was full-nippled. By Yellowstone, nonstop.

“Be right back,” I announced, and headed for my room to place Cindi’s box where it would be accessible.

Back in the kitchen, I poured us more Sprite, and in doing, tripped and sloshed my guest’s front.

“Oh, Josh, I’m so sorry! We can’t send you home like that. Let’s throw your stuff into the drier. Won’t take but a sec. Go in there,” indicating the bathroom, “and hand out what needs drying. I’ll find you something while they do.”

A minute later he cracked the door and thrust out his shirt and jeans.

“Everything that got wet,” me taking charge, and he passed out his boxers, to which I passed in my red flannel pajama bottoms and a Royals tee shirt.

“Here’s some underpants. Just mine, but nobody’s going to know,” having in hand the ones I’d bought long ago, per Cindi’s advice, should I meet Mr. Right at a book signing.

Josh emerged looking ill at ease as I steered him to the couch, parking him at one end, me in the middle. I’d have liked to ask how my parties for him, but settled for, “So, tell me about yourself, Josh, Any hobbies?”

“Not really.” It was like pulling teeth to get him to talk.

“You’re a great student,” out of the corner of my eye, inspecting my loaned bottoms for a sign of anything.

“I really like your class,” his hands over his lap.

“Thank you, And I enjoy having you,” my knee now against his thigh.

“I’d take it even if I didn’t have to,” trying to move away, but having no space.

“Know what you want to be?” a dumb question, as at his age they mostly think about careers related to video games.

“I don’t know. Maybe what Dad does. Accounting.”

“I’m sure you’d be good at it,” not much up on the subject. “Play sports?” crossing, then uncrossing my legs.

“Baseball, maybe, but I’m not on the team,” lifting his gaze to look me in the face for a second.

I’d hoped he’d say he was a wrestler and could show me some pins. I’ll bet Jessica sees their jockstraps when they do gymnastics.

“This thing has so many buttons,” I informed him, handing him my TV remote, requiring him to lift his hand, and yes, a bump!

We chatted until had to restart the drier --the load long dry -- my exit allowing me to undo a button on my blouse, and when I returned, he’d shifted to hide his condition.

. I found out that he was pretty good in math, liked Star Wars -- that sort of thing -- and had once collected insects.

Cindi’s Catholic. I’ve gone to her Christmas service. Catholic is a real church, not like these therapy ones with sermons like “Standing in Struggle against Globalization.” The Catholics invented globalization.

The poor Father probably quakes when Cindi confesses. As a guilt trip wouldn’t work, it’s usually 100 Hail Marys. St. Peter will let her in, I’m pretty sure.