Howard Banning - The tortured teacher

"Well, I'm very happy for you Linda. Listen," he said, getting up, "I'll probably see you at the game tonight, so be sure and introduce me to Steve, if it's not too inconvenient for you."

"Sure thing." And Linda did feel better for the rest of the day. She was now lecturing about the Dark Ages and Early Middle Ages, a topic fairly dear to her heart. "What emerged from the chaos of the barbarian and the ensuing break-down of long-time social organizations was a strong desire for order and solidarity in every day life. For this reason, the picture that you have of the Middle Ages as a very stable period of time with few disruptions except for religious ones, is very accurate. The stability lent itself to the purposes of the Catholic Church during those times."

She could tell that what she said was boring the daylights out of most everyone in the class, but it didn't matter to her. Just keep on hammering away and maybe some of it will stay in those little featherbrains, she thought, in between the teasing, especially those girls who showed up to school in tight jeans or even spandex pants and the inevitable string bikini panties. They looked like hookers, she thought, except for their faces not having enough makeup. No wonder some of the boys didn't seem to know quite what to make of them. She had become adept at spotting the bulges within people's pants as a way of gauging whether he would be capable of answering her question in front of the class.

She was glad that Pam and Gary had apparently cleaned up their mess in the classroom, except for a grayish round blot on the acoustical tile ceiling. She had also more or less ceased to be tormented by the idea of having watched them paw at each other, having told herself now that it was pure curiosity over an obviously bizarre situation that had kept her interest for that long.

There was a faculty meeting after school that day which kept her there much longer than she'd expected. She kept calling home once 4:30 p.m. rolled around, but apparently Steve had not gotten home yet. Several speakers went on and on about the need for the Marley High School faculty to bargain collectively to avoid the inevitable staff cutbacks that would come as soon as the district administration could find an excuse for implementing them.

Linda tried to be interested, since she was years away from getting tenure, which would have given her security of employment. But her mind kept drifting off to Steve and how much he wanted to tell him – in her own special way – how much she loved him. God, he was such a fox! She never really told that to him, because it sounded so gross, but she often thought it, as sort of an excursion into feeling guilty and sinful. Then she assured herself it was perfectly harmless.

As soon as the meeting was over, she dashed home in her car, looking forward to knocking down a drink or two with him before they'd leave for the football game. She'd get him in the mood tonight… she'd go without wearing any underwear tonight and then tell him about it during the middle of the game and watch him kind of squirm. She'd blow in his ear a couple of times, which just drove him out of his mind.

But he wasn't home when she got there. He had left a short note on the note pad. "Honey – I had to go see a client. It's sort of an emergency. I'll meet you at the game. Love, Steve."

Linda smiled over this. He was so nice, and she wanted nothing more than to tell him that right now. Where in the world could he be? Then an inspiration hit her that seemed like a flash of genius.

She looked very closely at the note pad that Steve had used and noticed that there seemed to have a few numbers on it, like a telephone number, just as she'd thought might happen. How could she make it out, she wondered. Maybe if I darken the area around the numbers so they stand out a little bit…

She got a pencil and stroked the lead very lightly over the indentations the numbers had made in the paper. And in a few moments, the numbers appeared, white against the now gray background. It was 578-6439. Interesting, she thought. I think that's a local call.

Well, Steve certainly won't mind my calling him just to say that I love him. I wonder who might pick up the phone, she thought as she dialed. It rang five times and Linda was about to hang up when it finally got picked up, although she had to wait a few more seconds before the voice finally came onto the line.

"Hello," said a familiar voice. For a second, Linda didn't know who this was, then it hit her. It was Rosemary O'Neill on the line.

"Hello. Who is this?" said Rosemary, sounding very annoyed. Linda came to her senses and quickly slammed down the receiver, too stunned to have any idea what to do about the notion that her husband was apparently making love to Rosemary O'Neill, that horrible vampire of a woman.

Linda sat silently for the next several minutes and prayed that no one would call back from the O'Neill house. It was too much to take, just the idea of her husband being unfaithful, without having to confront the principals in this sordid little drama.

She finally got up and poured herself a strong drink – whiskey straight. All right, what do I do now, she asked herself after tossing that down in a gulp. So she had another drink.

Good God. The very idea of Steve having an affair was awful, but to be doing it with Rosemary O'Neill, that animalistic bitch, turned Linda's soul to ice. She had another drink and then sat down.

Linda was a fairly optimistic person and even in the darkest kinds of situations, this optimism eventually worked its way through to the surface. So she finally realized, after thinking back on just how much Steve turned her on, that it could be that Steve was over at Rosemary's house strictly on business. Maybe Rosemary knew something about microcomputers that Steve needed to know.

So how would she find out? Well, maybe if she just drove by Rosemary's house and checked to see if there were any lights on in the living room. Yeah. If the lights were on, they'd probably just be talking. But if the lights were off, then she'd know…

She changed her clothes in a flash to make sure she'd be warm enough for the football game. Then she drank some instant coffee to be sure that she'd be able to drive without getting arrested.

She really wanted with all her soul for Steve not to be doing anything besides having a chat with Rosemary. The very idea of him doing anything else with that horrible creature made her cringe. So she squealed with delight when she arrived at the O'Neill house a few minutes later and saw that the living room light was very much on. Steve's car was out front, so it wasn't as if he'd gone to any elaborate precautions to conceal his visit to Rosemary.

Well, she thought with a sigh of contentment as she stopped the car, I feel much better. Yet she knew she was only fooling herself.

OK, so I think that he is inside that house doing you-know-what with you-know-who. What am I going to do about it? Christ, I wish I'd brought along some more whiskey or something like that. Well, she finally thought after a few minutes of contemplation, there's only one sure way to find this out. Do I want to believe Steve will tell me the truth?

No way, a voice screamed inside her head. Go for it, the same voice jelled. You'll never find out any other way. You know you want to.

So she opened the car door inch by inch so it wouldn't squeak and slipped out of the car. She padded up the sidewalk and on to the front lawn with a feline grace and agility, and the same sort of cold blooded purpose that a cat might have in stalking a prey. Curiosity and an icy hatred of Rosemary O'Neill throbbed in her mind. She had already decided that if Steve was doing something with Rosemary, she'd somehow find a way to forgive him, as if he could not have helped himself. She knew that Rosemary could probably get anything she wanted from anyone because she would stop at nothing to get it. She had seen that in her eyes – cold and reptilian.