Chapter 3
After school that afternoon Glenda waited nervously at the little drugstore across the street from the campus, absently tugging at a dark strand of her shoulder-length hair. This wasn't as popular a hangout for the kids as the canteen, and she felt much more at ease.
The concerned brunette nurse still didn't know exactly how she would act or what she would say when Jimmy arrived if he did arrive. When she'd spoken up for him at the tense little gathering in the superintendent's office she'd detected that he resented her intervention. But Jimmy was the kind of boy who would by nature resent anything anyone in a position of authority did for him. She'd clearly observed that much in him during the past several months. Still, she felt compelled to try to help him, to offer him some kind of encouragement and the affection and concern she knew he'd never got at home.
It must be terrible, she thought, coming not merely from a broken home, but from a home that had been destroyed by two of the most devastating vices man has ever known: alcohol and drugs.
But, beyond her misgivings about being able to deal with Jimmy on any personal level, Glenda was troubled by another problem. however vague. She'd insisted on meeting him here rather than in the canteen because she didn't want anyone else to know about it. She actually felt guilty, although there shouldn't have been any reason for that, and she was almost afraid to even attempt to determine and assess the reason behind that guilt. But the attractive young woman had to admit that, for all his belligerence and resentment, Jimmy was a handsome boy, and, perhaps deep down inside, she knew that was at least part of what was troubling her.
Glenda took a sip of her Coca-Cola and shifted on her stool at the fountain counter. Carefully she smoothed her thin uniform skirt down over her shapely thighs, her eyes descending for a brief instant down the inviting swelling mounds of her breasts and the sensuous contours of her upper thighs vividly outlined in the clinging material of the summer weight uniform skirt. Then she looked quickly up and away, somehow uncomfortable at her sudden awareness of her own sexuality.
Yes, she thought, Jimmy was a very attractive boy. She did not doubt that the superintendent had been right in his assumption that Jimmy bore responsibility for today's lewd display in the auditorium. Loose as Sylvia's sense of morals was, Glenda did not think for one moment that little Kenny Matthews would have had the gall to lure her in there on his own.
Glenda giggled spontaneously at the thought. In spite of her own shock at stumbling by complete surprise upon the lurid scene, in spite of all her confusion and emotional indignation, the sight of little Kenny desperately trying to pull on his trousers had not gone entirely unappreciated for its quality of sardonic humor. Glenda's medical training had endowed her with at least the ability to appreciate sex as a physical, biological function, and, even though she'd never quite been able to bring herself to emotional terms with it, she was not overly
puritanical or frigid. And, even if she didn't approve of what had been happening there in the auditorium, she knew it was only natural for young boys of Jimmy's and Kenny's age to want to experiment.
But she was almost certain that Jimmy looked on the act, not only as a biological function, but as an animal function. She'd heard rumors about his carryings on, not only with Sylvia, but with several other girls at school. She'd even heard that at one time he'd got one of them into trouble.
And she gathered that he not only looked on sex as being dirty, but enjoyed it precisely because of, that. And, Glenda thought, if she could change just that much of Jimmy's outlook, it she could make him aware of the existence of a more wholesome kind of affection between people, instill in him a sense of humanity that could later become a part of his sexual attitude, her intervention on his behalf and all the time she might spend with him would be well worthwhile.
Glenda took another sip of her Coke and looked up just as Jimmy, his face solemn, came through the door and strode toward the counter.
"Hello, Jimmy. Would you like something to drink?" Glenda asked, turning to face him as he moved up to stand next to the stool beside her.
Jimmy shook his head. "Not a soft drink anyway."
Glenda forced out a soft little laugh. "I'm afraid that's all they have here." She paused for a moment, biting her lip. "Well, what was the final verdict?"
"I told old man Rathley that I had to get a prescription filled for my mother," he said. "So I don't have to start till tomorrow."
For a brief instant Jimmy's eyes dropped from Susan's face down to her full breasts, then descended lower. He fidgeted, half turning away from her, his solemn gaze slowly sweeping about the drugstore. Then he looked back at her face.
"Do you feel like getting out of this dump?"
"Sure, Jimmy. Where would you like to go?" Glenda asked.
"I don't know."
"Perhaps we could take a walk in the park," she offered. "Even though it's getting a bit chilly, it's really a very nice day outside, and I've been vegetating all day at the clinic."
"Yeah, sure," Jimmy said.
Glenda rose, paid her bill and preceded the youngster out the front door of the drugstore. They walked side by side in silence to the corner, then crossed the street, and moved away from the campus toward the small city park two blocks up.
"You don't have to start what until tomorrow, Jimmy?" Glenda asked at last.
"Damn old fart!" Jimmy muttered, kicking at the ground as he walked.
"Jimmy!" Glenda gasped.
"We have to show up at school an hour early every morning, and we have to stay three hours late in the afternoon. For a whole week. That's why I had to tell him about getting that Prescription for my mother. Otherwise I'd be there right now."
"Well," Glenda put it, "it's better than getting expelled."
"I don't think so," retorted Jimmy, looking down at the ground. "I'd rather have been expelled. I just wish you hadn't stuck your nose into it."
Glenda caught her breath, feeling a deep hurt at Jimmy's cutting remark.
"But, you don't want to be expelled. I knew you wouldn't like me interfering, but I only did it because I cared for you, and because I know you have your whole future ahead of you. And your future, Jimmy, depends upon your education."
They continued a few paces in silence and then turned into the small now almost deserted park. Jimmy moved a pace ahead of Glenda, who looked at the boy with almost a desperate pleading in her eyes, and started along a little footpath that led though Glenda hardly noted it at the moment toward a secluded grove at the back edge of the park.
"And I guess my education depends on writing all that nonsense on the blackboard, too," Jimmy said after a moment.
"What nonsense?" Glenda said.
"That's what we're doing in the mornings and after school," the embittered teenager explained. "We have to write, 'I will respect the chastity of my female companions,' a thousand times a day on that stupid blackboard."
"Why that's ludicrous!" Glenda hissed. "If he's making you stay after school you should be able to use that time for something constructive, for your lessons."
"And I bet Sylvia doesn't let either one of us touch her again for a long time," Jimmy added. "She's doing solitary in another room. Hers is, 'I will respect my own chastity.'" He kicked angrily at the earth again. "But I don't guess it really makes any difference. We might as well be on solitary too. We're in one of those rooms with an intercom and old Rathley says he'll be listening. We can't talk during the entire three hours."
Glenda didn't think she'd ever heard of anything so foolish in her life. And, aside from the fact that it was a complete waste of time, this was just the sort of punishment that would only serve to further the alienation of a boy like Jimmy from his elders. And she vowed that, no matter how difficult he might make it for her, she would go to whatever ends necessary to open a channel of genuine communication between herself and the underprivileged youngster.
Then they went into the grove and again Jimmy moved ahead of her and started over to a little marble bench situated in the middle of a small clearing within the trees.
He took a seat and hesitantly, Glenda moved up and sat down beside him. Again she was made uncomfortably aware of his eyes roving over the lush curves of her body, a disquieting reminder that, in spite of his young age, he was in many ways very mature, almost a man.
"I really do appreciate your trying to help me, Miss Simmons," Jimmy began, looking up at her with almost a smile on his lips.
Glenda sighed. "It's nothing, Jimmy. Really, it's nothing. I just wanted to make you ... I just wanted to make you feel that someone did care for you ... if you know what I mean. I understand you've had a very difficult time."
"I don't want to talk about it," Jimmy said, looking down. Then he lifted his eyes. "I don't know why you should care anyway, either."
"But I do care, Jimmy, I care very much. I've always taken a special interest in you, though perhaps I haven't shown it as I should have."
For an extended and tense moment the young boy studied her intently. Then Glenda felt a chill go down her spine as he spoke. "I've always taken an interest in you, too, Miss Simmons."
"I ... I didn't mean it like that," Glenda stammered.
"like what?"
Glenda gazed with desperation into the young boy's eyes. It was all to obvious what kind of interest Jimmy was talking about. But she couldn't bring herself to come out and say it.
"You know," she managed after another short but tense silence. "I care what happens to you, Jimmy. I want you to trust me. I want you to know there is someone older you can trust. "
"I never thought of it in terms like that," Jimmy said. "I mean in terms of you being older or younger or anything. I just think of you as a woman, the same way I think of fourteen year old girls as women."
The young nurse gasped. For a moment her shock immobilized her. She knew what Jimmy was about to do, but she was so stunned she couldn't even move to resist. Then her body stiffened as he leaned toward her, brushing his lips against hers, softly at first, then harder, his tongue snaking hungrily into her mouth before she had time to defend herself. His leaning toward her caused his chest to brush up against the fullness of one of her up-thrust breasts, his arms wrapping around her to pull her own body in turn against his. Then, to her even greater shock she felt his hand move back up beneath her arm and between their bodies to press in a crude blunt gesture right over the ripely swollen mound of one breast.
Glenda didn't even know how long the embrace lasted. It came as too much of a shock to her, placed her too far off her guard, and she was hardly even able to believe it was happening even as Jimmy's tongue burrowed greedily up into her mouth and his hand mauled and massaged her high-set breast on the outside of her uniform and brassiere. She slid back several inches on the bench, glaring at him in rage, her eyes watery, her lips quivering.
And, as Jimmy looked back at her she thought she'd never seen such a cold and icy and sullen, yet at the same time, mocking gaze. It cheapened her. It seemed a blasphemy of all her good intentions. And it must have been that look that prompted her belated yet nonetheless
spontaneous physical retort.
She hardly knew it was happening until her hand moved, lashing out in a whip-like motion, and she heard the loud crack as it landed, palm forward on Jimmy's cheek.
When she drew it away she saw the crimson rush to his face where the slap had landed. But there was not the slightest change, not the faintest acknowledgement in his bitterly staring eyes. Then, a lump swelling in her throat and tears pouring freely from her own eyes, Glenda stood up and turned, leaving the clearing at almost a run.
Kenny Matthews yawned, looking forlornly up at the half-filled blackboard. The same thing over and over again for three hours, all yesterday afternoon. Now in a few minutes he had to start again for another hour of it, and, later this afternoon, three hours more. Slowly, the youngster's gaze drifted from the blackboard up to the intercom speaker-receiver system mounted far up out of reach above it. This, Kenny thought, was really something out of 1984. Then Kenny started in his seat as he heard the voice over the intercom.
"GOOD MORNING. I TRUST YOU BOYS HAVE YOUR WRITING ARMS READY. REPORT: JIMMY RUSSELL."
"He's ... he's out at the boy's room," Kenny stammered.
"AT THE BOY'S ROOM? WELL, IN PRECISELY ONE MINUTE HE HAD BETTER BE AT THE BLACKBOARD WRITING. THAT IS YOU, ISN'T IT KENNY?"
"Yes sir."
Then, to Kenny's relief, the next set of footsteps in the hall proved to be Jimmy's. The taller, more mature-looking youngster strode briskly into the room, glaring with irritation first at the intercom and then at the blackboard. Then he looked down at Kenny. "Boy, do I have something to tell you!"
"NO TALKING! JIMMY RUSSELL? REPORT!"
"Here," Jimmy muttered sullenly.
"ALL RIGHT BOYS, YOU CAN START WRITING NOW. THIS HOUR SHOULD BE GOOD FOR AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED REPETITIONS. AND DON'T FORGET, I'LL BE LISTENING IN. NO TALKING!"
Kenny made a face and took his chalk and began to write. Beside him, Jimmy did the same thing, squeaking the chalk on the blackboard. Kenny wrote the absurd sentence they had been assigned seventeen times before he paused to rub his arm, which was still sore from yesterday afternoon, then stared in complete shock at what Jimmy was writing: "I'm going to screw Miss Simmons."