Chapter 1

Griffin Parr, 32 years old, sat in the administrator’s office of the Pearson Girls’ Academy and sweated, though his discomfort wasn’t due to any failure in the room’s air conditioning. ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ he thought to himself. A man with his record applying at a girls’ school? But he had applied everywhere on the off chance that someplace might not dig too deeply into his past, and this school was the only one to call him back. He had worked hard for his education degree and didn’t want to just flip burgers for a living ... not that that would have earned him a living wage in the current economy.

He kept his gaze on the older woman behind the desk and noted that the school administrator Ms. Ferguson had probably been hot when she was in high school herself, but another 25 years had worn down that hardbody into the softer form that sat before him.

The auburn-haired woman adjusted her cat’s eye glasses as she read through his resume. “Hm,” she began, “Mr. Parr, may I ask why you left your last teaching position?”

He had been waiting for this. “A disagreement with the principal that couldn’t be worked out. I assure you that will not happen here, Ms. Ferguson. Uhh...” He felt a pressure bloom behind his eyes. He wondered if it was a stress headache.

His eyes shifted to the corner of the room behind the desk. The shadows seemed somehow darker there, and he had the feeling that he was being watched. His eyes unfocused and he blinked. Well, he reasoned, of course he was being watched ... Ms. Ferguson had put down his resume and fixed him with her pointed gaze.

“Mr. Parr, this is an all-girls school. I want you to be completely honest with me: will my students be safe under your authority?”

He couldn’t stop the words, as if the pressure behind his eyes were pushing the shameful truth out of his mouth. “No ... I’m ... I like teen girls ... a lot ... they’re so smooth ... full of life ... unspoiled...” He shook his head. “But only young women ... sixteen and older! Oh God...” He held his head in his hands. Why had he said that?!

“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Parr.”

He looked up. Ms. Ferguson was writing something down but she hadn’t even raised her voice at his shameful revelation. He wondered if he hadn’t been loud enough and she had misheard? He got to his feet. “Um ... thank you for your time.” Then he quickly strode out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Ms. Ferguson put down her pen and stared at the door, seemingly lost in thought.

The miasma of shadow moved from the corner and came alongside her. “He’s perfect,” a light female voice informed the school administrator.

Ms. Ferguson picked her pen back up and noted that. “He’s perfect,” she repeated with decisive finality.

Griff shook his head as he unpacked. He had no idea how he’d gotten the job, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The academy was full-time and both staff and students lived on campus, strangely in the same building. No, not strangely, he realized ... it was an all-girls school with what was supposed to be an all-female staff, another reason that his hiring made no sense.

After he unpacked, he headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. “Good morning, sir!” a pretty student called out to him, giggling as she strode by him in the hall.

“Um, hi,” he responded to her retreating posterior. The girl was ash blonde, probably a senior by her height and curves. He noted her legs in the light blue school skirt that came down to a few inches above her knees. Probably a track & field athlete, he figured by the musculature. Then he realized that he was staring at one of the students like she was a piece of meat and shook his head. “Goddamnit...”

In the cafeteria, Griff found a lot more young women wearing the same uniform. Some filled out their white button-up tops better than others, mostly seniors of course, but he also found his gaze drawn to the younger students with their slimmer legs and smaller breasts. He had heard that the school had so many students this year that they had removed the lower grades. None of these young women were under sixteen, just the way he liked it.

He moved to the cafeteria line as his gaze swept across the room, noting a shapely leg here, the swell of a growing breast there, and he chastised himself again. It wouldn’t do to get written up on his first day for ogling all that young flesh. He grabbed a tray and a chocolate milk.

“You’re Mr. Parr, right?”

He turned, startled, and looked down. He hadn’t heard anyone coming up behind him. There was a brown-haired girl there, looking younger than the sixteen years she had to be with her short, thin frame. He noted her pale blue eyes, large on her elfin face, and just stared at them for a moment before he caught himself. “Um, yes, I’m Mr. Parr ... and you are...?”

“Treena,” the girl responded nonchalantly as she also grabbed a chocolate milk from the cooler shelf. “I’m in your class.”

“Oh ... well, good to meet you, Treena. Uh, what’s your favorite subject?” ‘Ugh, lame,’ Griff admonished himself.

“Psychology.” She looked past him. “Line’s moving.”

He quickly shuffled along, keeping Treena to his side as he took a plate of toast. “We have a psychology class?” He wasn’t trained for that!

“No, I just like it ... I read lots of books in the library. I’m going to be a psychoanalyst when I graduate. Did you always want to be a teacher?” she asked as she also took some toast.

He dished himself up some scrambled eggs. “Yeah, I was a bit of a loner in school and one of my teachers took a special interest in me when I needed it. Really inspired me, so I hope to do the same.”

“Hm.” Treena took some eggs herself.

Griff didn’t need psychology training to notice that the girl was matching his movements. She clearly liked him, or at least was emulating him for some reason. He grabbed the ketchup, doused his eggs, and held the condiment bottle out to her.

She screwed up her face. “I hate ketchup.”

“Hmm...” Griff responded and put the bottle back. “Well, see you in class, Treena.” Then he headed toward what was obviously the staff table.

“Oh, Mr. Parr,” a Filipino woman with bottle blonde highlights greeted him. She was a little chunky and looked to be slightly older than him. “Welcome! So strange, a man teaching at an all-girls school! Are you gay?”

“Jesus, Miri! You can’t ask that!” A mousy, late thirtysomething brunette woman in glasses on his other side hissed. “Of course he is. Ms. Ferguson wouldn’t bring a fox into the hen house...” He felt her hand give a quick squeeze on his bicep. “ ... so to speak. I’m Paula, the librarian. Miri teaches some of the seniors.”

“Hi Paula, Miri,” he greeted each with a turn of his head and a winning smile. He didn’t answer the question of his sexuality, figuring that it was probably for the best if everyone thought that he was homosexual. He turned back to Paula. “Treena was just telling me that she frequents the library.”

“Who?”

“Um ... brown-haired, short, big blue eyes? Like really big.”

“Oh, yes ... quiet girl.”

“Is she? Seemed to be pretty chatty to me.” He looked around for Treena, but after not seeing her on a quick pass he gave up ... there were dozens of students milling about. As his attention returned to the table, he saw Miri looking at him intently and gave her a questioning look.

“So ARE you gay? If you’re not ... UCH!” The woman had brought a fork full of eggs up to her mouth as she was talking and somehow absentmindedly stabbed it into the roof of her open mouth! Blood burst forth and ran down her chin. “UHHGH!”

“Jesus!” Paula cried out and grabbed a napkin. “What did you do, Miri?! Quick, put pressure on it and let’s get you to the infirmary.”

As the librarian led the teacher away, Griff looked at Miri’s eggs, covered in a red that was definitely not ketchup, and pushed his own plate away, his appetite gone.

“Welcome, class! My name is Mr. Parr, and I’ll be your teacher this year. Um, grade 11, right?”

His lame, self-deprecating joke elicited a couple of sad chuckles from the gaggle of girls. “All right, I’m going to read out attendance...”

When he got to the only Treena on the list, he looked about and noted her at the back of the class. The room was like a small auditorium, with each row a step higher than the one before it. While this made it easy for each student to see the teacher and vice versa, and no doubt made it so that everyone could hear him well enough, he also noticed that it gave him a lecherous vantage up the uniform skirts of the students in the upper tiers. “Treena, I see you’re here...” ‘ ... and you’re also wearing pink panties, you little tease.’ he added silently in his head. She gave him a big grin at his acknowledgment.

“Ugh ... she’s the teacher’s pet already,” someone obnoxiously called out.

Griff swiveled his gaze to lock onto probably the most attractive member of his class, Ariel ... yes, like the mermaid, she had remarked when her name had been called earlier. Upon realizing that she had his attention, the pale-skinned girl swept her luxurious wavy red hair to the side and gave him a no doubt practiced ingratiating smile.

“What was that, Ariel?”

“Nothing, Mr. Parr,” she said musically, her eyes swiveling up in a pronounced universal ‘gimme a break’ emote.

“Hmm.” Griff looked back up at Treena, who had visibly deflated, now barely noticeable in her desk (except for her undies still playing peekaboo from between her slim legs).

The class went reasonably well. He only messed up a couple of the other girls’ names when he called on them for answers, but teaching was like riding a bike and he could handle algebra hands-free. He made sure that everyone got a chance to answer an equation up on the whiteboard, though the ones that had to stretch, including Treena, gave him a tantalizing glimpse of their thighs as their skirt slipped upward just a little. He wondered if this job was going to kill him.