Weird Things

I first noticed something was off while I was looking away from Rachel, who was looking away from me. The difference was I was deliberately doing it. The pretty brunette classmate of mine seemed to be having no trouble on her part.

A sigh invisibly scented the air before me. It seemed like the day was going to be as humdrum as usual. Another batch of notes, another hour of listening to adults speaking, the same splayed out folder. I was set and ready to snooze. I was set.

Set.

Dead set.

...or so I thought.

It was while the teacher was discussing climate patterns that the first of the odd things happened, and the dominoes began their wave. Rachel had been looking to the front of the classroom for the majority of the hour when suddenly she turned to me, her chocolatey hair flipping over her eyes, and I gulped, blinking away. When I flickered a gaze towards her a second after, it confirmed it was but a blank; the next second, she already had her focus back on the teacher and the lesson and I was once again a phantom non-menace, drifting through doors and side streets alike. I released a relieved breath. At first I thought she'd suspected something. Maybe a slightly off-center muscle. A blink one second too short. An elongated stare. I don't know. It's not like I was ogling her; I just didn't want her to be creeped out... for the times I did want to. You know. Yes, yes; a rat am I.

So after that I continued darting a glance or two her way, thinking the coast was now clear. The first odd thing, the fact that she looked at me in the first place, made a very small ripple in the pond -- it could've been coincidence, it could've been the window, it could've been her stretching a tube in her neck. Anything. So whatever flags were raised, here I simply ignored them. And rightly would have -- if that had been the last occurrence. After all, it was harmless. Trivial. Perfunctory! But then for a second time, with renewed interest, she swiveled her neck sideways to look at me and the spell was broken. Sharply I whipped my faced forward, only to sneak a quick look her way again to see that she was still looking at me, and slightly grinning. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and started preparing something to say -- what I could not figure -- as if being asked to plead my case, when she was the one who instead chose to spark conversation. Leaning in my direction, she looked from front to back and then back at me and stuck her hand down her skirt. I stared, too dumbfounded to jump back, blink, or cream myself as there it remained, that extremity of hers, latched to her right limb, wriggling under her feminine garments. Her hand's elegant shape snaked underneath her bottom's flowery fabric as she sweetly informed me of her actions, "I'm so horny, I have to finger myself silly. Sorry." She giggled as if having just disclosed a funny joke. Then she leaned back in her seat, still looking at me with a petite grin, and stuck her other hand into the same spot her doo-diddling fingers currently massaged. She leaned back, spreading her legs a little, and let her head drop backward. "Ohh yeah," she breathed out, careening her neck to her side and then back. "Ohh yeah."

Mind you, this isn't the part where I wake up, get smacked in the scalp by a ruler, and reeive a one-way ticket to the marvelous getaway of post-curricular detention.

This is the part where I look around, blink, let time pass for a few seconds. Then realize Rachel was masturbating herself off in front of me and the class, essentially, and was still doing it, while I watched with my hand frozen in mid-air with my pencil still within it.

Something was absolutely turned on its axis and if I had a scientific bone in my body I would've been more determined to deduce what. Instead I looked to Keith, who sat behind Rachel, and was sure he was going to go off or make some noise about it. He'd throw a giant spotlight on you if you just dropped your book on the floor, let alone commit an actual act of indecency; he was the kind of guy that took the attention in stride. But no response of the sort arrived. The black-haired boy just scoffed. Grimaced, even, as her head began invading his space, that he otherwise made no move to stop.

It was then a familiar echo reached my ears. I was sure we'd get a reparation of this lewd miasma.

"Mrs. Taelie," suddenly boomed the voice of the teacher at front. I gulped and saw him with his hands on his hips. The whole class perked at the severe voice, then turned to the girl en masse. This was it, I thought. And I held a breath in wait -- wait for some kind of clarification, or dissipation of this surreal moment. But instead, what I heard was even more surprising. "Are you fucking yourself in my class, young lady?"

"Yes!" squeaked Rachel, whose face shot forward, but whose fingers remained circling her pussy lips underneath her skirt. A few giggles scattered the classroom. I dropped a jaw at their nonchalance. What was going on? Did no one find the typically stalwart Rachel frigging herself in public as anything more than some twisted punchline? Like, maybe very weird, for instance?

Peculiar?

So much so, in fact, that this has never happened by way of anyone thus far in the school for the past couple decades? At least that I knew of.

"Well, why didn't you say so!" said the teacher, who unbuckled his pants, dropped his underwear down, then turned and slapped his two ass cheeks. The whole class burst into laughter. "I would've been able to slap my manly ass while you fingered your vagina earlier!"

"Sorry Mr. Ackers, I'm just so horny." Slop slop slop. "So horny." Slop slop slop! "Now everyone here knows how horny I am, ugh, it's so embarrassing."

"It's okay, and yes, yes we do, young, sexy lady." Slap, slap. "Next time, just communicate and we'll be on the same page. That's all you need to remember."

Another squeak followed. This time from the feet of my chair as I stood up with wide eyes. Now the class turned to me, on their faces expressions that indicated I was the puzzle, instead of the other way around. "What -- " I was unable to finish, as Mr. Ackers raised one hand to face me while he continued slapping his buttcheeks with the other hand. Double-time.

"Frank Fowl, was it?" he voiced through the slapping sounds rattling through the classroom. I tried to ignore Rachel shuffling in her seat and the creaking that came from it as well but couldn't. How could I? With no route of rationale to embark upon, I simply stood under my half-naked teacher's scrutinizing gaze. "Any justification you may have for disturbing my class?"

I looked around. Everyone was looking at me slightly confused, interested, a mixture of the two. It was then I realized, no, no I didn't have any justification.

If everybody knew something I didn't, then there was no argument to be had. None whatsoever.

Staring at some invisible fixation before me, I returned to my seat and tucked my arms underneath my desk. For a long minute, I remained quiet and in thought, wondering if I was going crazy or losing a gear or two.

It was only a minute later that I noticed the slop slop slops had subsided, and the slaps were no longer crackling through the air. With a reticent look up, indeed the scene had seemed to revert to some kind of semblance of normalcy. Rachel was writing notes, and Mr. Ackers was talking to the class, with his pants back on. And the class was as dull as usual, slightly glazed eyes and all -- and that was no oddity. That was youth-hampered attention spans at work.

What..? I thought. I looked to Keith. Then to Mr. Ackers. Then back at Rachel. Then looked away, while she did the same, without much effort on her end.

My head turned back to look through the window, and the slightly overcast sky. It may have looked like a normal swivel of the neck, but inside, my eyes were in a kind of electric bewilderment, held back only by some semblance of self-doubt. Of my own sanity. My own two corneas. Of what I thought I knew about the physical vividness of a fleeting daydream.

The fact that Rachel's fingers seemed to glisten under the lamp light didn't pass me by, and I dug a finger or two into the twine of my jeans as I furtively glanced around the classroom like they were all aliens and I was now surrounded by them. I would've spoken up, but I was afraid that some kind of magic cloud would be lifted and they'd all unsheathe their fangs from their clamped haunches. Folders didn't make for great makeshift weaponry, and now I was certain that this wasn't real anyhow. That. That wasn't real.

Whatever was happening, I just hoped I'd be able to wake up in time for breakfast. Little did I know, this kind of dream didn't take hopes like that for an answer.