Chapter 3: First Day of School

Amanda's room seemed small. There was a bed with brass posts, a tall, narrow dresser, and a bureau with a chair and some stationary. Next to the bed, a potted plant sat on the windowsill. It had fragile yellow flowers of a sort I didn't recognize. The pot was green. Her bed had no quilt like mine had. In fact, it remained unmade with its sheets strewn about and a tattered pillow cast haphazardly near its edge. A yellow rug lay on the parquet floor.

Her shoes clicked as she crossed the floor, but on bare feet, I was as quiet as a mouse. When she reached the rug, and its silence, she turned to me and reached for me, taking my hands and drawing me close. Through stiff fabric, our breasts touched.

"Is that nice, sweetie?" she asked.

I pressed closer, feeling my nipples swell under my bra. One of her hands reached behind me and squeezed my bottom. The other held my upper back, pulling my mouth toward her mouth, and toward hot kisses. I reached behind her neck and our lips locked.

When she released the kiss, I said, "I've never kissed a woman before."

She smiled. She placed her hands on my shoulders and held me at arm's length.

"Did you like it?"

"Yes Ms. Crist – I mean, yes Amanda. I liked it very much."

With a soft smile, and with such warmth and tenderness, she asked, "Shall we continue then?"

I nodded.

She pulled me to her again. More sweet kisses.

"Tyballa."

"Yes?"

"May I remove your blouse?"

I saw no mirror in the room. The bureau seemed small and its chair uncomfortable.

"Yes, but where is your dressing table? Your mirror?"

"Tyballa, I don't have a dressing table, and the mirror is in the bathroom, but I intend to undress you right here. Okay?"

She reached to the top button of my blouse. Then she looked at me, and I nodded, and the button came undone, then another, then another. We kissed, and the buttons all got undone. She spread my blouse open. She found a snap at the front of my bra and opened it too.

Stepping back, she looked – for a very long time, gazing at my naked breasts.

"My god, Tyballa, you're beautiful."

I looked down, and I could see what she meant. So round. So plump. They were the soft color of cream with the slightest bloom of pink around the nipples. She lowered herself, bending her knees, pulling me close. With both hands grasping my bottom, she lifted my skirt, only the slightest bit. She took a nipple into her mouth and sucked, as if she were my sweet child. One then the other, she sucked as they swelled. I held her head to me.

"I fear I shall swoon. Might we sit?"

She rose and caressed my face. "Yes dear, let's go to my bed."

I joined her in her bed.

The sun had long set when we finished making love. From the window behind me, the cold drifted in. I felt the chill touch my bare flesh, but it couldn't penetrate me. It touched my skin, but went no further. She touched my skin also, and I burned.

I heard her voice in the dim light. "I love when it gets cold like this, when I'm not alone."

She pulled me to her warmth. Her breath was on my face.

I wondered, how often was she not alone? "Do you have people over often?"

"No. Not often. Every few semesters there's a special girl."

She said it so casually, as if this were such a normal thing, as if one could just love, then love someone else. How many girls had there been? Were they cast aside?

"Why did you leave them?" My voice was nervous and meek.

"They left me, Tyballa. They graduate, and then they're gone."

"Oh."

I lowered myself and rested my head against her breast. "I don't think I'll leave you."

Her body tensed.

"Sweetie – oh my darling – you can't say that now."

So she said, but even with her face obscured in darkness, I could hear a tremor in her voice. After a few warm moments, she asked, "Tyballa ... was I your first lover?"

Was she? I'd lain with the prince before, my husband, but that was so long ago, and while he'd always finished the task, he'd always left me feeling confused and dissatisfied. I knew lovemaking was meant to be more than that. Until this moment, I didn't know why.

"This was my first time."

"Oh! Well ... you did very well my dear."

And she was an exquisite teacher. Perhaps she hadn't known that she was teaching me, but I'd learned. I'd learned where to put my mouth, of those forbidden places, places I'd never dreamt a mouth might go. I'd learned what to do with my mouth once there, delightful, wicked things. I'd learned about fingers too, and where they might go, in me, in her.

The cold deepened, and our clothes were long since cast aside. I felt her roll over and reach, then back, pulling the sheets up and over us. Again I felt her warmth, again her soft breasts.

She slept. I did not.

One mortal lifetime I was given, banished here. If I served the tawny haired girl, if I pleased her, I would return to the castle, to the queen, and to my pallid body – and the constant sight of my frozen home. Such was promised. And if I failed to please the girl, I would die, I supposed. One mortal lifetime – fifty years? – eighty? – with Amanda?

My heart beat in my chest, and I felt warm. I resolved to have nothing to do with the tawny haired girl.

The rising sun woke us still together, but the sheets were kicked aside. It was very cold.

"Good morning, sweetie."

"Good morning."

She reached down and gathered the sheets, pulling them back over us. We lay together for a while.

She rose halfway, resting her hand on my hip. "Sweetie, we have to get up."

"Alright."

She got out of bed. Through the window, the morning sun cast its light on her naked body. Pulling the sheet around me, I sat up and noticed what the cold was doing to her nipples. She must have noticed too, for she grinned at me and pinched them.

Then she saw my skirt and blouse laying over her chair. "You didn't bring any bags!"

"No."

"You don't have a change of clothes?"

"No. Just those I came in."

"Oh. Well, it can't be helped. You can go to the student store today and pick up some uniforms, and I guess they'll have your room ready."

"Oh."

Then she said that she would bathe.

"Isn't it too cold?" I asked.

"Tyballa! There's hot water, and you must bathe too."

When I got out of bed, the cold affected my nipples too. "Can I join you?"

She stared at my breasts and beamed. "Yes."

I learned how a shower worked, and that soap came in little bars. We kissed a lot.

We dressed. She made a small breakfast of toast and something called "coffee". I didn't like the coffee at all, so she gave me a glass of juice. We went out and into the elevator, and then out to her car. She drove.

We were in her car moving along a crowded road.

"I'd prefer to stay with you? Mayn't I?"

"No, Tyballa. People would talk."

"What do you mean?"

"Tyballa, you do understand that we can't tell anyone about – you know – being together."

"What? Why not?"

"Uh..."

She reached an intersection and stopped. She looked over at me.

"Tyballa, if they found out we – you know – had sex, they'd throw me in jail. You do get that?"

"Why?"

The light changed from red to green. She started driving again.

"Tyballa, don't make me nervous. This is serious."

Both her hands gripped the wheel, and she looked straight ahead. I reached over and touched her.

"Must we keep it secret?"

"Yes, Tyballa. You really don't understand?"

"Ma'am? I mean, Amanda? I guess not. If we're in love, why shouldn't we tell people?"

"Because I'm your teacher, and teachers can't be with students, and adults can't be with teens."

"Oh."

"Tyballa, I'm serious. If they found out – you really don't know. Tyballa, where did you grow up? People your age understand these things. I thought you understood. I believed – I wouldn't have –"

She cut short. We had passed from the town into lightly wooded hills. I knew the route from yesterday, from going the other way.

"You wouldn't have what?" I asked, my voice starting to break, "Been with me? Loved me?"

"Don't misunderstand."

Soon we neared the hedges of the academy. When she reached the gate, she turned and drove up the long lane. Well-tended grass spread around us. Well-tended trees leaned over and shaded us as we raced over dappled pavement. I could see clusters of uniformed girls milling between red brick buildings.

"Tyballa, just promise you won't tell anyone."

"I promise."

She parked the car. I felt empty.

"So, was it just this one time? Do you love me at all?"

"Oh Tyballa, it wasn't just this one time. That I promise you. And I don't know if I love you, but I like you a lot, and maybe I love you. But I'll see you again, as much as I can, whenever we can find a way, whenever it's safe."

She looked at me. Some deep feeling crossed her face, and I touched her. I leaned to kiss her, but she drew away. A pair of girls walked by with a plain view of the car.

"We can't. Not here."

And that made me understand. I knew what secrets were. I knew how to bury things, to tuck them away in the little corners of my soul. I got out of the car and walked toward the school, to the office for my schedule and help finding my first class. I felt a chill.

The same young woman was working in the office, except she had traded her floral dress for a medium length burgundy skirt and tan blouse. When I approached the counter, she spoke.

"So, I guess you'll need your schedule and all of that."

"Yes. Please," I said, my voice flat.

She brought a thin packet over to the counter. She glanced at the first page.

"Most of the girls have breakfast until 8:25, but I guess Ms. Christensen must have fed you. Anyhow, your first class is Latin with Father Murphy in Miranda Hall. It's directly across the green, in the building with the glass doors. You'll see it as soon as you step out. Anyhow, don't be late. Father Murphy is real strict."

"Thank you, miss."