Miss Stoller

You wake up, bright and early. It's 6am and the sun is just peeking into your window. The birds are chirping, and you can hear the "One-Two-One-Two" sound of girls jogging in the yard outside. There were some pretty strict rules handed out, but not it's time to get busy hunting down the implicit rules. The ones you weren't told about.

You ask around about expectations and (eventually) find out that all students are required to keep their own rooms not just clean, but spotless.. And sign up for two of the chores around the school. And keep their clothes well-ironed. Finding this out, getting your chores out of the way, ironing your tacky school uniforms, collecting cleaning supplies, and beautifying your room eats up the entire day.

Ha! Not really! It just FEELS like the entire day. Actually, you're pretty much used up by early afternoon. Seven hours of work. And that's on an OFF day.

Lying on your bed, you hear a knock on the door. "Yeah?"

"Hey man, can I come in?"

One of the male students. "Yeah, sure. C'mon in."

"Hey, thanks man. Listen, I hooked up with these two sweet chicks last night and it was... man, it was incredible. Anyway, I just woke up and I thought, you know, even though it's an off day I should check out what's expected of us. Anyway, I heard you asked around a bunch. Do you think you could summarize it for me?"

You practically throw him out of your room in disgust.

The next week is a little weird. Stoller and her prefects are on your ass ALL THE TIME. The prefects are pretty relaxed and apologetic, but Stoller is like a vulture. All five boys have about the same number of demerits by the end of the week even though you've been working twice as hard as any of them.

No. This is wrong. This is totally not fair. You can't keep up with these unrealistic expectations and you've been celibate for almost a week. You feel like you're drowning.

Your opportunity to get away finally comes Sunday night. You reach a computer and write off an email for Stoller, including two of the tamer pics you'd taken of her.

"Miss Stoller,
unless you want the board of supervisors and the entire internet to see these pictures and more, you will ease off on the male students and start treating them fairly. Monday night, you will go to dressing room 4 and wait for me there. Withdraw all hall monitors that night so we can meet in private. Stand facing the corner and wear something sexy with no panties. I'll be there a little after 10. We can discuss terms then."

You click your mouse key down on the Send option and then freeze in horror.

NO! You do NOT want to send this!

Carefully... mouse button still pressed down... you slide the cursor off to the side and let go. The email is not sent.

The problem is, it's obvious that your email was written by a man. That means instead of 300 suspects, Stoller would only have to deal with 5. She could probably narrow it down to you, and you don't want that yet. You try again.

"Dear Miss Stoller,
some of the boys are talking about quitting, and that isn't fair. There must be some way we can convince them to stay. Some of the rules seem a bit slanted against them. If we could meet and negotiate this, I would appreciate it. I don't want to do this, but I have these pictures and more and I know the email addresses of some pretty important people. Are you free Monday night? Dressing room 4 is pretty private and there aren't any windows. I don't want you to know who I am, so if you could give the hall monitors the night off or something and be facing the corner when I arrive, then we could talk things over. I'll see you at 10.

P.S. I promise to cut you more of a break if you can wear something more fashionable than you usually do."

Looks good. You Send it and get back to mopping down the auditorium.

Girls are always late, so you wait outside dressing room 4 for a while. At 10:22 you quietly open the door and slip inside. What you see takes your breath away. You shut the door behind you and it takes a few seconds for you to be sure that the woman in front of you is indeed the severe Miss Stoller you've seen so far. Even when she was masturbating, she didn't seem THIS different. She's facing the corner and is looking at a small wooden plaque on the wall. She's wearing a loose-fitting blue sundress and matching slippers. Her wavy, light brown hair has been let down, and it reaches almost to her waist. You don't know what she's done with her makeup, but from what you can see, she's absolutely gorgeous. Innocent and sexy, without being naked. You've never seen anyone look like that before, even in movies.

She doesn't look behind her, but waves a hand in your general direction. "Whoever you are, you can do what you like with the pictures; I'm thinking of quitting anyway. I would have liked to talk to John Doe first, but I don't know if I have the strength to... I've actually known him for a long time. You don't mind listening, do you?"

"No," you say, trying to keep your voice a little higher than usual. It seems to work, since Stoller keeps talking.

"It was about six years ago. I was substitute teaching for work experience and wound up teaching his social studies class for almost an entire semester."

Wait. You remember that woman. Yeah. Miss Stoller. But she was unattractive, overweight and... No. No way in hell. It can't be the same woman, that's impossible.

"I was... well... in a word, I was fat. I was kind of drifting into the teaching world and I was just giving the minimum necessary effort. I figured it would probably be enough for me. People were rude to me because of how I looked and they didn't like that they had to share space with me. I didn't mind it with the students, but insults coming from other teachers really hurt. John was one of my students, and he... he was nice to me. You know, with most people it doesn't take much to win them over. When my birthday came around, he brought me some flowers, like he did with all the other teachers. I think they were pansies; nothing expensive. Nobody else at the school got me anything that year, not even a card. I... fell in love."

She's silent for a few seconds, then gives a short laugh. "I didn't tell him of course, the whole notion is ridiculous. He was far too young, and I was... am... a teacher."

She takes a deep breathe, then continues, "Anyway, I ended the year, a woman in love. It felt good. I decided that I would make myself 'worthy of him,' by working hard and improving myself. I stopped thinking of myself as a 'hopeless case' or a 'lost cause.' I knew hooking up with him was completely impossible, but I kept up the illusion because it inspired me and kept me moving. 'If it's a stupid idea and it works, then it's not a stupid idea.' I figured, eventually I would fall in love with someone else or just get sick of working hard and give up on him. I took a year of dance classes for posture and poise. I run every day to burn off calories. I eat healthy food. I study hard and work hard. I tore my way through the graduate programs like they were nothing. I am the youngest faculty head this school has EVER HAD and what secured the position was people seeing how dedicated and focused I was. In a sense, I owe everything I've done to John."

She's silent for a long, long time. Then, "I... I chose an all-girls' boarding school because I... I didn't want to take the chance of seeing him again. I didn't know what would happen. Would he think I was a sick weirdo if he found out? I guess, since he's of age, I'm not a sick weirdo anymore. You see, everything I've done, I've done because of the CHANCE that he and I... but I didn't want to lose that chance, because then what would happen to me? I don't have any other dreams, really, I don't have anything else to drive me. I had a dream of running a school - I'm doing that. Strike that one off the list. When they announced that they wanted to send a few boys here, I was worried, but I figured the odds against John being one of them were astronomical."

She chuckles to herself. "Anyway, sure enough... he was chosen."

She hits the wall with her hand. "And now I FUCK UP! Constantly! I dress like a... a... a seventy-year-old librarian. I act like a total bitch around him - that isn't ME, that's not who I am! I make his life a living hell. I can't even bring myself to be in the same room with him without screwing everything up. He probably hates me now, and who could blame him? If he... I could handle being rejected by him, I think I'd be okay with that, but I... I want him to at least... at least like me, but I don't see how that'd be possible. Um, anyway, do what you like with the pictures; I'm giving my four weeks notice tomorrow, anyway."

She's silent. The ball's in your court now.