Chapter 1
The city of Newark was not exactly the ideal place for a young teacher who had just finished her student-teaching to begin her career, but Patty Brown didn't have much choice. To begin with, she was black, though at first glance it would have been difficult to tell. Her skin was lighter than that of most white girls with a summer tan. She was what might have been classified as "High-Yaller" in the south and the Ozarks.
Even though both of her parents were black, somewhere in Patty's ancestry there must have been a white person, because her features, though somewhat negroid, were not nearly as pronounced as those of most black people. Her nose was wider than that of the average white girl, but not very much wider. Her cheekbones were higher, but more oriental than anything else. She had an overbite, but if anything it enhanced her lovely, almost haunting beauty. Even her hair wasn't quite as crinkly, and when she brushed it and pulled it back into a bun, it didn't have a frizzy appearance at all. All in all she was an absolutely stunning girl, five-feet-seven inches in height, very slender, though with a pair of breasts that took away from her slenderness. Her waist was extremely narrow, and her hips were almost boyish. Her thighs were long and lissome, though she had enough meat on her calves so they didn't look like stickpins.
Now twenty-two, Patty's deep, dark, almost black eyes had never seen a naked man other than her brothers, and she had seen them only because it was difficult to live in a five-room apartment with four sisters and seven brothers without seeing at least one of them naked at one time or another. Besides, those brothers she had seen naked were all considerably younger than she, which meant there was nothing about them to arouse her.
Patty had gone through high school in three years, had gone through her first four years of college in three years, and had her master's degree to back up her being a teacher. However there was a slight drawback, now. The population was decreasing. As a result, school classes were not only smaller, but fewer. Therefore the need for teachers was much less. True, many teachers retired, and it was indeed necessary to replace some of them. However, a young girl like Patty didn't have her druthers when it came to deciding where she would teach.
The various black ghettoes of the country needed teachers most of all, and Newark was one place in dire need of good teachers. So Patty was sent to Newark, not only because she was a good teacher, but because she was black, and the powers-that-be foolishly believed a black woman stood less of a chance of being raped in Newark than a white woman.
Had they sent an ugly teacher to Newark, they would have been more correct, since an ugly woman, especially an ugly woman in her mid-forties or early fifties, definitely stood much less of a chance of being raped than a pretty teacher, whether she was black, white, yellow, red, brown or green with purple polka dots.
The powers-that-be, in their stupidity, not only sent a pretty teacher to Newark, but sent her to a high school, where the students were old enough to know what sex was all about. Not only did they know what it was all about, but they practiced it rather judiciously, if not with one of their girl friends, then with some unwilling, female member of the community.
However Patty, having been brought up in ghetto herself, was well able to defend herself. She knew enough never to walk down any corridor by herself unless she was carrying a sharp-edged ruler in one hand, and a sharp pointer in the other with the rubber tip removed. She knew where and how hard to kick a male who might attempt to attack her, and was prepared to fight off three or even four males at any one time if it proved necessary. She was so busy protecting herself against the students in school, she was totally unprepared for an attack when it came from a completely unexpected quarter.
Although she worked in an all-black school, and even the other members of the faculty were black, there was one person who was very white. That one person was Irving Daniels, the school principal. Daniels was not only white, but had blazing red hair. He had a nose that was broader than hers, though the tip did come to a point, and he had little piggy blue eyes that seemed constantly red. When he spoke he grunted more than spoke, and when he walked he waddled more than a little. At one time he had been a very heavy man, and though he had lost more than a hundred pounds, he still moved and walked as if he were fat.
Initially he came across as a frightening person. However, as one became accustomed to him, he was shortly discovered to have a tremendous sense of humor, and he laughed at anything genuinely funny, while able to tell a joke with the best of them.
Daniels had been married twice. His first wife, with whom he'd had fourteen, yes fourteen, redheaded daughters, he had finally divorced while still paying child-support for his daughters. He was blaming the fact that he had no sons on the poor woman. His second wife had lived with him for two years before dying of some illness or other. Daniels, ever the fatalist, was able to accept everything, and if not exactly happy about losing his wife, he had never grieved openly.
It was rumored that certain attractive black girls who were flunking many of their subjects managed to be graduated from Grover Howard high school. Grover Howard, after whom the school had been named, had been a white man who, like Medgar Evers, had lost his life trying to defend civil rights.
As a teacher, Patty was more than fairly successful. Because of her good looks the students listened to her, and she knew how to teach literature in a way that alluded to sex. In fact, many of the texts she chose were sexually oriented, such as the Cantebury Tales and the Decameron. She slinked through her classes wearing very tight, neck-high, knee-length dresses in which she looked sexier than most women did wearing nothing. Often she chose students to act out parts of the various books, and as a result, many of the students went on to read other books on their own, becoming considerably more literate than anyone would have believed.
She worked hard to get through the first semester, and found her way through the second one considerably easier. In fact, it was halfway through her second semester that sex began to rear its head, and therefore foisted itself on Patty in the person of Irving Daniels, principal.
Daniels had seen her during her lunch break, and he had walked over to her when no one else was around, and he had said, "Miss Brown, if it's convenient, I'd like to speak to you in my office after classes, today. Say at about three-thirty."
"Is anything wrong?" Patty asked, feeling troubled.
"I'll discuss it with you when I meet with you in my office," he told her. "Please try to be there promptly."
"Certainly, Mr. Daniels."
Shrugging, Patty wondered what was bothering him. She knew she hadn't done anything wrong so she would have to wait and see.