Myra Kaine - Lesson for teacher

"Miss Fenton. I will send a playground supervisor down for you. Someone who is trained in supervising children's recess games. You must never again put yourself in the position of being on the same competitive level with your students. It destroys discipline. Now perhaps you'd better show me around Rio Sur."

"Yes, of course, Mr. Crane."

The tour didn't take very long. There was very little to see of "plant." The school consisted of one long room with a boy's bathroom opening off one end and a girl's next to it. The other end of the room held a small library she had accumulated with the children's help. Set in an alcove just off the entry was a small cloak room. The shed on the path up from the highway held the sport equipment and primitive water pump that pumped water up to the bathrooms.

The large school room was full of exhibits the children had made, most of them from last year since school had only been open this year for a short while. Taylor Crane stood surveying the long room, the students bent to their work in an unnatural quietness. Usually the place was a beehive of activity as the various grades went about their assignments.

"Seems that your room discipline is adequate," he said grudgingly to Valerie and turned to go out the door to the small porch.

Valerie closed the door after them and stood on the wind swept porch with the superintendent. She was shaking inside and hoped that she'd be able to contain her anger until he left. He hadn't had one single compliment to make. Everything had been wrong according to him. His criticisms had wounded her deeply for the school was "hers," she realized suddenly. It was as much a part of her as her own house, her horse. He was attacking something she loved almost as if it were a person. The old building, the rustic plumbing, the wild meadow that surrounded the sides and back of the school, the sea lapping below, the hot ribbon of highway that burned with traffic back and forth to Big Sur.

"But there's no question that what you need most is a playground attendant," he intoned. Crane looked down at the trembling girl. As tall as she was and she must be at least five eight, he looked down on her comfortably from his height of six four. She was trembling quite visibly. Well, she'd shake worse than that when he closed up this dilapidated ruin of a school. It was ridiculous that his district should have the last one room school house in California. Antiquated and costly and old fashioned. Taylor Crane hadn't any intention of disclosing the fact to Valerie Fenton yet, however.

"I'd really prefer to do it the way we have been doing, Mr. Crane. You see… I…"

"Nonsense, my dear," Crane slipped his hand under Valerie's arm in a fatherly fashion and walked down the steps with her. He could feel the full roundness of the side of her breast brushing the back of his hand as he held her firmly. "No teacher ever turns down an offer for help. You certainly need help for the playground. I should think a male attendant would be most suitable… all children need a good strong male image. Particularly since my records show that many of these children come from Welfare homes without fathers."

Valerie was trembling violently now and the feel of Crane's strong masculine hand gripping her upper arm and brushing the side of her breast was like a burn that raged through her skin. His eyes were turned on her and they had turned from stern employer looks to frank sexual stares that followed the outline of her body appraisingly. It was as though he were a Jekyll and Hyde and had simply turned off the strictly business superintendent in favor of a male animal who scented a new quarry. She shuddered.

She didn't dare look at him now, shrinking from his frank stares, from those burning eyes that probed beneath her clothes for her lush nakedness. My God, the man was mad. First he came down and ripped her school figuratively to disdainful shreds and then calmly began ripping her clothes off with his eyes. And it seemed so unlikely. He had the tall courtly grace of a Prince Philip, unquestionably masculine, unquestionably able and haughtily aware of his own competence. He was a man women would find attractive. Strong aquiline features, piercing grey eyes, an aggressive jaw, light brown hair that didn't ruffle much even in the wind, as though even his body were immune to the slings and arrows that other people were prey to.

The superintendent could feel the young teacher trembling now almost violently, as though a chill had gripped her instead of only his hand on her upper arm. She was a big beautiful girl, quite unlike the usual run of teachers. His eyes traced the long thighs where the wind whipped her skirt back against her body. No, she wouldn't have had many dates he shouldn't think. She was too beautiful, too aristocratic looking, too well… competent for most men's tastes, he imagined. Suddenly, his cock thrust hard against his pants leg. It would be something to tame this girl, for her spirit came out her eyes that flashed when she was annoyed. Yes, he would have quite a time with this one. But then he had the advantage. He knew a great deal more about Valerie Fenton than she knew about him.

He couldn't very well not know about her. Since he arrived he'd had numerous phone calls from town mothers demanding to have their children transferred to Rio Sur. In her five years there some of her students had gone on to win quite valuable scholarships at prestige schools. Somehow the idea had gotten around that it was all due to Miss Fenton. It had been Miss Fenton this and Miss Fenton that until he'd gotten out her records and studied them, asked questions. He'd become grimly determined when he realized that a teacher like Valerie Fenton could wreak havoc with the program he had in mind. She was a maverick, a born rebel, giving lip service only to the programs and methods that the district required and doing as she damn well pleased down the coast at Rio Sur. What it amounted to was that she was practically running her own private school system at taxpayer's expense.

Well, Taylor Crane hadn't fought his way this far to have a crazy mixed up twenty five year old girl ruin his plans. By God, his plans did not include a teacher he couldn't ride herd on. One-room schoolhouse! It was out of the dark ages! No question about it. With the proper maneuvering, he would close Rio Sur when he was ready and have Miss Valerie Fenton begging him for any kind of job in the district.

"Thank you for the tour, Valerie. It was most informative. I'll see you soon… under perhaps… more social circumstances…" Taylor squeezed her arm suggestively, looking straight down into her upturned blue eyes that were both frightened and bold, obsequious and independent. A flicker of something stirred in their deep brilliance as his hand slid down her arm to her hand which he shook warmly. Without another word, Crane spun on his heel and stepped into his long shining car. He waved jauntily as he roared off down the highway back toward town.

Valerie stood dumbly where he'd left her. She wanted to shake her fist at the retreating car and yet her insides still felt weak from his hand on her arm. She shook her head grimly. What was happening to her these days? A fight with Bruce the last date they'd had… now this. Maybe that's just what was wrong, she thought in a sudden rush of uncharacteristic self pity. Maybe she was a dried up old maid as Bruce Landers had told her in disgust. Yet she knew that in reality that most probably the opposite was true. She'd refused to see Bruce again because she was more afraid of her own responses when he touched her than anything in the world. It had gotten so that he had only to smile at her in a certain way and she could feel moisture dampening her panties down between her thighs. Bitch in heat! she'd called herself cruelly.

Even that cold superintendent touching her arm and she'd begun to get all tingly and warm despite her intellectual anger at the man. A strange man… very strange… it was as though the moment he stopped being the superintendent, pompous and authoritarian, an electric spark had struck between them… or was it only her own too active virgin's imagination at work… that she thought every man in sight wanted to make love to her. Still there had been the way he'd looked at her… as though he wanted to rip her clothes off and ravish her on the spot.