Thou Shalt Not(56)

Good morning, Luke, the text from April read, as if right on cue. I still hadn’t heard back from Holly, but it was Friday so I had a feeling she would sleep in.

I sat down and put my feet up on the desk, another no-no for the students and pulled a toothpick out of the box I kept in my drawer. It was fun doing things they couldn’t and then reminding them of it when they complained. Teachers could be jerks sometimes, yeah.

Good morning back. How are you? I replied. I shifted the toothpick to the inside of my cheek and held it there.

I am tired.

Rough night?

Just couldn’t really sleep.

Why not?

Just a lot on my mind. Then she added: Marco came home drunk.

Please tell me he didn’t drive all the way home from the airport that way...

He did. The thought of drinking and driving doesn’t faze him, no matter how big a deal I make of it.

Professional athletes often got arrested for DWI’s and I always wondered why they would let themselves get to that point, but they obviously saw themselves as larger than life and didn’t think the rules really applied to them. This news certainly helped me like Marco even more than before.

Well, I’m glad everyone is safe, I replied, thinking more of the people who were driving near Marco on the roads than of him. If he had careened off the road, I might not have to have the conversation with April that I was dreading. I was breaking up with someone I wasn’t even dating. God, I was way overthinking all of this.

This time, she replied.

You going to join us downstairs for lunch, or are you guys meeting since he’s back in town?

He wants to have lunch. :-/

It really wasn’t a good sign when a woman put a face like that when saying she was having lunch with her husband.

Maybe I should avoid the breakup talk and just wait until the marriage fizzles out on its own. It seemed to be heading in that direction anyway.

Have fun!

Maybe so. Enjoy your movies, some of us actually have to teach today. ;-)

The morning dragged by slowly with no communication from April and movies that I had seen a million times. I started playing a scramble word game on my phone, but lost interest pretty quickly.

It wasn’t until the third period neared the end that I got a reply from Holly. I tossed my toothpick in the trash and sat up straighter.

Good morning. :-) How’s class?

Videos. Easy, boring day. How are things with your brother?

He is making excuses about the whole thing. I told him he needed to get his shit together because his excuses don’t work with me.

Tough love. You can probably make him see it more than anyone else.

I hope so.

What did you do yesterday, besides get him settled in?

I did some schoolwork, got my car washed. Oh, and I went to Victoria’s Secret. :-)

Oh really? Find anything worth spending too much on?

I remember Holly mentioning before how much she thought Victoria’s Secret was an overrated, overpriced chain that she had no desire to shop in.

They actually have some nice stuff! I was pleasantly surprised.

Hopefully you didn’t tell the employees how much you hated their product.

Look, I was wrong okay! They have some sexy things.

Oh yeah?

Here, hold on. I’ll show you.

I had no idea if she was just going to take a picture of what she bought, or if she was going to model it for me, but the bell rang to dismiss my third period class, so I had to put my phone down to switch the video for the next class.

When we had started dating, and even after we had broken up and transitioned completely to the FWB category, Holly had been a heavy proponent of sending me pictures that showed herself in various stages of undress. I had told her the first few times she did it that I wasn’t used to dating a girl that would send pictures like that. It was usually the girls who wanted to get you into a relationship, or wanted to get you out of the relationship you were currently in that sent pictures like those. Her response had been that now that it was possible to send someone a dirty picture in a matter of seconds, girls would take advantage of the power they have over men by sending pictures to turn them on. She said that there was no way I would cheat on her if she sporadically reminded me of what was waiting for me back home.

“Someone will send you pictures like that,” she said. “And I’m going to always send better ones. Some slut that wants to get you to cheat isn’t going to beat me at this game.”

To her prophetic credit, she had been correct. After a week or so of dating, an old college friend named Megan had come out of the woodwork once I posted that I was “in a relationship” on Facebook, and immediately started sending me messages about how much she missed me, etc., etc. I couldn’t really remember ever spending all that much time with her, but while in the middle of teaching one afternoon I got a picture of a foggy bathroom mirror and a silhouetted nude body reflected in it. The picture had come completely without warning and had taken me by surprise far more than it turned me on, despite her attractive body. Needless to say, I had never seen Megan in that light before. I showed Holly the picture that night when I went home, and later that evening we had a pretty rigorous fuck. And the next day, during chapel of all things, Holly sent a picture that made me forget who Megan even was.