Alissa Nutting - Tampa

The muscles in his forehead began to move in opposing directions; for several seconds I watched its various folds come alive like rows of earthworms, each one moving independently from the others. “You’re some kind of pedophile?” he asked.

“I’m not pilfering the elementary schools,” I pointed out. “They’re teenagers.”

“But you married me,” Ford spat. In his grief it was hard to tell if he was simply worked up or if he’d prepared himself for our meeting with a more proper dose of alcohol than I’d originally thought. “It wasn’t like we didn’t have sex,” he countered. As if the thought was too absurd to even speak, he chuckled a little, though it was dry and unsmiling; he knew that once he said it, he’d likely have to accept it as true. But the part of Ford that hoped I’d immediately proclaim the statement to be lunacy and chime forth cries of denial did finally compel him to say the words: “What we had together wasn’t fake.”

I suppose I could’ve given him what he wanted, apologized and said that it wasn’t him, claimed to be sick in the head. But the boxy gold rings on his fingers were too much a reminder of the nights I’d had to sacrifice a part of myself to placate him. Now that there was no further reward for pretending, it simply felt too difficult.

“You should go home, Ford,” I said, as gently as I could bear it. I felt a surge of injustice at the irony of it all: Ford was completely inattentive to the unlimited sexual potential he could leave my cell and start enjoying. How simple it would be for him to walk into a bar and find a partner of legal age whom he was attracted to, take her home and proceed to orgasm. Yet he had no sense of appreciation for this liberty. Instead he’d go home and drink and sulk. Perhaps make an ill-advised intoxicated drive to a late-night gun range. While I’d have given anything I still owned for just an eyedropper of Boyd’s semen to play with, there was nothing stopping Ford from running off to taste the full spectrum of the Kama Sutra rainbow, but he didn’t even care.

“Do you love me?” he asked. When this question failed to gain an answer, he soon began looking for a consolation prize. “Does any part of you love me? Did you ever?” I didn’t mind anger, but his expression was turning to one of injury and it sickened my stomach. His pain seemed like such an internal, private thing, no different from excrement—something to be dealt with in private. But here he was, putting it before me and making me smell it.

I realized his eyes had grown wet with disbelief; he was truly seeing me for the first time but couldn’t reconcile it with his memories. He seemed to need some verification that I actually was the same person he’d lived with for several years—that his authentic wife wasn’t trapped somewhere, kidnapped, while I acted as her imposter. So I lay down on my cot, finally rolling away from him toward the wall as was my usual custom when we’d get in bed at the same time. With an air of normalcy, as though we were at home for one last evening together, I uttered the words I’d said so often in our bedroom. “I’m tired, Ford. Could you please turn out the light?” As I closed my eyes, the question brought on a nostalgia for my soft pillow, for my nightstand of applied creams set to begin working as I slept, repairing any damage done through daily exposure to free radicals.

I held myself taut awaiting his reaction; my buttocks involuntarily clenched, partially expecting him to attack. Instead he stood there for what seemed like hours, staring at my back as I kept my eyes fixed on the wall. “Fuck,” he finally exclaimed. He then began a loud bang on the metal door that echoed indefinitely and had the effect of making it seem like we were inside a submarine. Moments later the door buzzed open and everything grew quiet.

It was the last time I ever saw Ford. The light inside my cell stayed on all night.

Whenever the prosecution rattled off a list of the physical acts that comprised “lewd and lascivious battery,” the judge’s face held a look of delighted interest suggesting he wasn’t the least bit bored by the details of my trial. In general, his constant expression was one of content inquiry, his eyebrows raised expectantly like a tourist sent to the future who was trying but failing to comprehend what he might see next.

He certainly wasn’t prepared for the spectacle of Janet Feinlog.

She was my defense’s sole character witness; in addition to hardly knowing me, all the other teachers at the school, in fear for their jobs, would never have agreed to come say anything nice about me on record. Perhaps Janet wouldn’t have either, had she still been employed at Jefferson. Shortly before the Christmas following my arrest, Janet had had an expletive-laced meltdown in front of her class and thrown her chair against the wall. Nearly half the students captured video of the incident on their cell phones: by the end of the day, the recording was well on its way to going viral on every social media website imaginable.

The entire court seemed to come to a standstill as she waddled to the podium in a black sweat suit that appeared to have dried toothpaste around the collar. Once she got seated inside the witness-box, she grabbed the complimentary glass of water and began chugging as though she’d just finished a marathon. But after her thirst was quenched, she was more than ready to go.

She didn’t wait for a question from my attorney, instead choosing to take an “open mic” approach that lost her some points with the judge. “Celeste is a good woman,” she barked, pulling the microphone closer to her mouth. “Teenage boys’ minds are in the gutter.” After several warnings to only answer the questions asked, she apologized in a conciliatory manner that warmed my heart: it was clear she wanted to be an effective witness on my behalf.

“Mrs. Feinlog,” Dennis began, “have you ever known a teenage boy to make a sexual advance on a teacher?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Janet scoffed. “I taught junior high for nearly twenty-five years. Their brain is a gerbil and their libido is Sasquatch. You really think the gerbil is going to win?”

On cross, the prosecution chose to focus more on Janet’s recent career change. “You were fired from Jefferson last fall, isn’t that correct, Mrs. Feinlog? For low job performance and inappropriate classroom behavior?”

Janet chose to perjure herself just a little. “It was mutual,” Janet remarked. “I didn’t want to work there anymore.” Then she rubbed her nose with the back of her palm several times and squinted at the prosecutor as though his head was rapidly shrinking and she could hardly make out his face anymore.

During the prosecution’s presentation, Jack and Boyd had been asked nothing beyond simple questions that established if the events had taken place—they didn’t need to prove why or assign blame; if it had happened I’d broken the law and was guilty. Jack had kept his head low, refusing to look anywhere near me, while Boyd openly grinned and repeatedly tried to catch my eye. Rather than cross-examine them then, Dennis decided to call them back as witnesses for our defense—he hoped this might give the jury more of an impression that the boys were still on my side. This was certainly true with Boyd; he was a smiling, gift-wrapped witness who wore his pride at having slept with me on his sleeve. From the moment we’d begun having sex, Boyd’s greatest wish was for the world to somehow know all that he and I had done together, and now that it did, he couldn’t have been more ecstatic. When Boyd came back up to testify, his newfound confidence made his steps nearly buoyant; I half expected him to pause on the way up to the witness-box and do a backflip.