Carlotta Graham

Teacher_s bonus

CHAPTER ONE

Lisa Hamilton paced the outside aisle between the last row of desks and the windows. She could see the schoolyard and the small park beyond, its trees and shrubs just beginning to bud with spring, and because of the slant of the afternoon sun, she was also able to see her image reflected in the glass.

She paused for a moment, the way a woman will when passing a mirror, and primped her long blonde hair with her fingers, inspecting herself abstractly in the window's reflection. Never, though, did she pause in her lecturing, the day's lesson on chemical reactions between basic oxides and acids flowing from her lips in a never-ending stream of words. Lisa Hamilton was known as a hard task-master by her high school students, even though to look at her, one would think she would be warm and tender and perhaps too soft on the freshmen who took her course.

In fact, there were some who couldn't understand how Lisa could stand being a teacher at all, when there were so many more exciting and pleasant things for somebody as beautiful and provocative as she. Most of these were men who had tried dating her at one time or another, and who had subsequently been firmly rebuffed in their amorous efforts. Lisa was thirty-one, of medium height and a little on the slender side, with full high-peaked breasts and firmly rounded thighs, long sculptured legs and a flat taut belly – all of which were more in keeping with the budding figures of the girls in her classes, instead of a woman twice their age. Her face was a heart-shaped oval with a pert stubby nose and large Koala-bear eyes with bright ice-blue pupils. Her lips were naturally crimson and needed very little lipstick, and they habitually curved outwards and down in a mock, seductive pout. Her smooth skin was the ivory of a natural blonde, although during the summer months she took a tan readily and became a golden hue. Add to all that a melodious voice with a seductive, throaty purr, and it was no wonder that the vice-principal chewed his report cards with frustration!

At the moment, her class was either looking at her or their open books, and all of them were fidgeting. They wound their legs around the metal supports of the seats in front of them, sliding down farther and farther in their chairs and doodling aimlessly with their pens. Lisa Hamilton talked on, and she was only half-heard, the teenagers impatient to get outside in the lovely weather, their eyes rolling around the room like cattle in a small enclosure.

Finally the voluptuous blonde teacher made a complete circuit of her class and came once more to her desk. It was on a raised platform and was much larger than any of the others, and was cluttered with reports and bunsen burners and all the paraphernalia necessary to conduct experiments. When she stood behind her desk and stared out at them, the students all knew it was time to pay closer attention, as much as they wished not to, and there was the soft sibilant sound of cleared throats and shifting clothes, like the rustle of dry leaves across the ground.

"Bertram," she said, indicating a tow-headed boy. "Would you tell us all what happens when acids are added to bases?"

"Uh… salts are formed, Mrs. Hamilton."

"Very good. And what determines the number of salts which can be formed? Not you, Elmira, I can see you've done your homework! Sherry? Will you tell the class the answer?"

The girl in the third row, fourth seat blushed a violent red, and lowered her head. "It… it is determined by… by… by…"

"Don't you know, Sherry?"