Call for help

At first, there was no response from inside the biology classroom when we knocked on the door. This was typical of our teacher, who frequently refused to acknowledge late arrivals until they came accompanied by members of school staff who they would have had to fetch. She liked to make a show of apologising to said staff members for further humiliation. I was resigned to suffer through all that and worse, especially if there was the slightest opportunity of getting somebody else’s notes instead of attending the class. Mine were usually pretty terrible because I was so behind in many science-based subjects. Carmencita however, was having none of it; she practically banged her fist against the door and called out to those within.

Even though the door was very well insulated, there was audible silence on the other side. I couldn’t hear her footsteps, but I could picture Rashid slowly walking across the room to our position, to dramatically yank the door open in front of us. She didn’t disappoint, as mere seconds later there she was, in all her usual curmudgeon glory, and then some. Even Carmen was taken aback.

I was not prepared for the sight. She too had on display what would have once been her erogenous zones. Her breasts were mere sacks of wrinkles, and in the mess that was her crotch, it was almost impossible, without close examination of a kind I would never even consider, to distinguish patches of blotchy discoloured skin from inconsistently greying pubic hair. In a way, the shrivelled remains of her assets were fitting, the logical extension of the vice and corruption already imprinted on her face.

“Ibanez, explain that.” she said, motioning downward with her chin, whose shape allowed for almost accurate use as an index finger. There was a glob of semen still drying loose in Carmen’s bush. She either hadn’t bothered to clean it up or the stuff had gotten out belatedly.

Evidently Carmen did not have the guts to say ‘fuck you bitch’, so she did the next best thing. She parted her thighs just a little, ran her finger along the entire length of her slit, picking up all the stray cum on the way, and then sucked herself clean. She particularly exaggerated swallowing the harvest, and ended her performance looking like she would burst out laughing any second.

Rashid paled, quite a feat considering her age-darkened complexion. She took a step forward, staring right at Carmencita, who gladly reciprocated the gesture since it accentuated how much taller and bigger in stature she was than the little old bag of hate trying to impress her. That was a mistake.

I caught an evil glint in the witch’s eye, and her arm still holding the door twitched. She slid back suddenly and propelled the great slab of wood back toward the space in its default position, which Carmen now partially occupied with her nose.

Without thinking, I grabbed Carmen by the collar and pulled her toward me; at the same time she tried to take a step back. The door slammed shut, and although it failed to harm her as intended, hers and my confused movement made her lose balance on her high heels, and she began to topple over backwards. Fortunately I caught her and she recovered fast. That it didn’t take much of my strength to hold her weight up was a testament to her own ****.

We had to go straight to the Principal’s office. Usually when you are kicked out of class, the teacher is supposed to write a note to be handed to the secretary, who makes a record of it in the student’s file. As Rashid routinely didn’t bother with that, it became quicker to simply notify the supreme authority directly, and let them deal with the non-existent paperwork.

He had nothing better to do, so he lectured us for a half-hour, rambling about respect to our ‘educators’, and how it was important to balance duty and recreation equitably. At no point did he particularly fixate on the nature of the activity that we had defected from class to engage in. For all he cared, we may as well have gone to play a card game for a bit.

It was snowing when we were released and sent home. There were inches of snow on the pavement, and the same thickness in ice on the road. Circulation of motorised vehicles would only have been closed in the early afternoon, so their tracks would have had plenty of time to compact the snow into its more treacherous state. Soon the crowds would make the pavements almost as unusable, when the work day ended.

With my coat buttoned up, and my hood hiding most of my face, I bowed to the shape I thought to be Carmen on the way out of school, rather than say anything, as I didn’t want burning cold snow in my mouth. The shape bowed in return, and we parted ways.

I was less than halfway across town back to Mother’s when I became aware of a strange sensation coming from my chest. I ignored it for several seconds, as I didn’t want to take my hands out of my pockets into the freezing cold to find out what it was, but then I realized it was simply my phone vibrating. Someone was calling me.

I stopped walking, and turned my back to where the wind was pushing the snow from, and set about answering the call. It was tricky getting through the many layers of winter clothing given how slow my fingers were from the low temperatures, but I got there in time.

It was a number I didn’t recognize, yet it had been saved automatically among my existing contacts. I opted to trust in my past self who must have used it at least once.

“Frank?” It was a girl’s voice, which narrowed the pool of suspects a bit. I didn’t know many ladies on a phone number basis. Yet I couldn’t place this girl.

“Remind me who you are? You sound familiar...”

“Charlotte,“ said the girl, “your cousin. Your mum had a massive row with my dad, remember? We were on a trip to the Mare Erythraeum together...”

My uncle was a rich drunk, who had very early on cut down contact with family to the bare minimum. His wealth meant that we only discovered what he was like during the long holiday trip he paid for out of his pocket. It was a great disappointment for Mother. He was only tenuously related to her, and she had probably hoped to build a half traditional family, as they were both spouseless. It became clear that where she had been unlucky with her choice of partners, he simply tended to spoil his relationships himself.

“I thought your dad wiped me and Evie from your phone. How did you find me?” I asked. Even in the new climate it was the most logical question. And I didn’t know where she was at this moment. She might be in some part of the world where my new concerns were still fantasy.

“He never got round to it. He just hawked over me all the time. I’m in town right now, your town.”

“Fair enough,” I said, “but why wait until now? Surely you could have sneaked a call or two before? You don’t – “ and then I faltered. I had to avoid thinking aloud.

“What? What? Come on, spit it out!”

I couldn’t help but sigh in defeat. On the bright side, the question would give me food for thought as to whether the change reached beyond the City.

“You don’t want to have sex do you?” I blurted.

“Fucking hell no, I do not want to have sex! I don’t want to have sex with you, I don’t want to have sex with that random cunt on the bus, I don’t want to have sex with Evie, I do not want sex right now. I want to speak to someone who isn’t a fucking lunatic! You’re my last local contact I haven’t called. Your mad as coot mum called me a bloody deviant! Tell me you’re not a part of this? You’re not like them? You can see your town has become a stark raving madhouse, can’t you? I’m supposed to be here for three weeks! How do I get through this? What the fuck am I going to do?”