Tales of Reluctance: Tale 03

Part one

The ripple of quiet murmuring slowly travelled down the line of boys until it reached David who was standing alone at the back. Unlike his peer group he was not really that interested, but he casually registered the triumphant chattering about; "Mrs. Raymond's wearing a short skirt today." David smiled as he saw a couple of girls roll their eyes at this testosterone-fuelled elation. He knew the girls with equal excitement would soon be discussing Mrs. Raymond's choice of clothes or her new hairstyle. To the boys she was someone to lust after; to the girls a style icon, to David though she was just a teacher.

As he walked into the class that day David decided to study her a little more closely as he mused on what the fuss was about. Sure she was attractive, her tall frame meant she was slim with shapely legs. Mrs. Raymond was fond even at school of wearing high-heeled shoes, which toned her legs perfectly. The shoes ensured every muscle in her calves and thighs were sharply defined. Her dark brown hair framed a pretty face with attractive cheekbones and large brown eyes. There was no questioning her attractiveness and many of David's friends had commented on what a lucky man her husband was. The rumor was he was much older, and that he was a villain, or even a big time gangster, but as with lots of things at school David wondered if someone had just made these stories up.

David snapped out of his daze as the headmaster popped his head round the door.

"Sally have you got the keys to the staff room," the headmaster asked, while David quickly found his seat. Mrs. Raymond immediately handed over a set of keys, as the class thought how odd it was to hear their teacher called by her first name. By now everyone was seated and the history lesson began. David had never been a fan of history; preferring practical classes like woodwork and metalwork to the more academic stuff, but Sally Raymond's teaching style made even History an engaging subject. She showed them how to research a topic. To critically assess the facts and draw their own conclusions as to what was going on. Even better they looked at the effect on ordinary people of events like the moon landings, or sporting triumphs, rather than studying historical figures and what they did. This caught David's imagination far more than remembering a list of dates and facts about some grand event.

The past half-terms work had been exactly an example of this. Sally had given everyone projects and David had been told to look at a family called the Raimondi's. David's had found it fascinating learning about how the Raimondi's had become one of the key Mafia families. A Paolo Raimondi had become one of the most feared Gangster's of the forties, and his sons and grandsons (often given the same first name) had continued in the "family" business. He had managed to trace their activities illegal and llegal to almost the current day when they disappeared. The family seemed to scatter around the world, and go completely legitimate. Any remaining dodgy dealings became myth or legend.

It had been great fun piecing this work together and after being reviewed by Sally, she had told him to add a chapter on what the Raimondi's might be doing today. It had been the best task of all, writing a piece on what might have happened to them all. To David's delight Sally had given him an "A" for his project.

At the end of the class their teacher engaged them in a brief discussion about what they wanted to do next week, it was to be the final lesson of the school year. Traditionally the last lesson contained some kind of treat for the class. The unanimous vote was on watching a movie, but there was little consensus on what. Eventually Sally ended the class by telling them she would pick the movie for them and everyone left smiling and chatting. Many of the boys tried to get one last look at Mrs. Raymond's legs as they walked out.

One girl asked. "Where did you buy your ear rings miss?" Mrs. Raymond smiling gave a short concise answer and thanked the girl when she added. "They are lovely miss."

The class was on average nineteen years of age and Sally was only twenty-five so the age gap was not that great. David left wondering if his teacher knew how the class idolized her for their various reasons, and how she was the most popular teacher in school. Mrs. Raymond always gave very little away, so it was impossible to tell what she absorbed from the goings on around her.

A week later the class sat watching, "The Godfather," and Sally Raymond smiled to herself, crossing her legs under the desk as she did so. Her choice of movie had been spot on and the class was fully absorbed in watching it. True it was violent, but it was historical, and many of them like David had recently done projects in the area of organized crime. It also allowed her the opportunity to study David without him noticing. She knew most of the boys lusted after her in the way young men would and she loved it. Sally enjoyed the way they thought up elaborate excuses to talk to her or offered to do menial tasks to help her. Over time the fact she was attractive to her male pupils and of interest to some of the female ones had become more and more important to her. Sally soon realized dressing well helped her gain popularity, so she focused on this more and more. It seemed to create the following from the girls; the boy's interest was of course far easier to generate. Her self-esteem was driven by this popularity, all be it she tried to be a good educator to her pupils too.

David was different though, he was more aloof, but a hard worker. Over the course of the last two years he had gone from bottom of the class to the top, showing real talent as a historian. It was a shame that despite this talent his heart seemed to lie in practical subjects. His woodwork teacher spoke very highly of him and also thought he had real promise. The question Sally pondered whilst watching him was whether he could be persuaded to take further history education and whether he could afford it. Or did he really want to set up his own business in some kind of trade such as building.

Sally wondered why she continued to dwell on David's motives. For her plan it did not matter much, as long as he needed or liked money and who didn't? It wasn't like she cared about the boy. All she had to do was talk him into helping her and he was without question the one she most wanted to ask. For a start he was disinterested in her. This might seem a problem, but it would make it more of a challenge and she liked that idea. He also had the practical skills to support the cover story she had worked out. The million-dollar question was would he be happy to aid her and her husband. She smiled at the idea of him helping her husband. The simple fact that his aloofness made him the right choice also made his response to assisting a difficult thing to predict. Sally thought he might need some persuasion, but she knew from experience she would be good at that. All be it to get what she wanted might require some patience from her and others.

The movie was coming to an end now and the class would soon be leaving. It was at the end of the movie that Sally dropped her bombshell that she would be leaving the school and so would not be teaching them next year. She smiled to herself, delighted at how disappointed they all looked. All that is apart from David, who seemed not to be concerned by the news.

Sally had a lot of marking to do and her daydreaming had not helped her get through it. The goodbyes and good lucks kept going on for ages before Sally was finally left in the classroom on her own with the door shut. Deciding for the umpteenth time that she would go through with her plan concerning David, she took a deep breath and returned to the marking. God how she hated it, but hopefully there was some fun times to come now school was finally over.

At the end of that final school day of the year, David was shocked to get a note to go and see Mrs. Raymond in her class. He wondered what on earth could be the reason, perhaps he had left something behind, but he could not think what. There did not seem to be any way he could be in trouble.

When he walked into Sally Raymond's classroom David found her sitting on her desk, legs crossed, looking at a laptop. She immediately looked up and stared at him. He felt himself blush a little as his eyes travelled up from her black high-heeled shoes, up her legs and body, to her face. When his eyes met hers she smiled warmly. Her whole face lit up and David found himself realizing just how pretty she was.

"Hello David, thanks for popping in to see me, please sit down," she said warmly. "I have a favor you might be able to help me with." David sat and listened as she explained what she wanted to see him about. It was hard work though not being distracted by her legs, which were right in front of him, at head height. Sally seemed to be careful to keep her knees close together but it didn't stop David's mind wandering.

However he soon grasped what Mrs. Raymond was saying. Basically with her husband she had agreed that they would build a log house in their garden over the summer. This would then allow them to move the study from the house to the new building, and free up a bedroom to become a nursery. David expressed surprise that Mrs. Raymond was pregnant, but before he could say anything more and assume this was her reason for leaving, she explained she wasn't yet expecting a baby. However, Sally explained she was hoping that she would be expecting soon.

David was surprised. His teacher seemed not the maternal type. He had seen Sally with other babies, brought in by other teachers, and she had always kept very distant. Also she was in to her designer clothes, and was always immaculately turned out, not at all compatible he thought with having a child. She had always talked to the class about loving travel and her freedom so this also seemed doubly odd, but what did he know, he thought.

"My plan to have a baby," she told him very sternly, "was just between the two of them! Not for your friends ears or anyone else's. This is preparation," she explained. "Obviously for a teacher the summer holidays are the one time we can do projects like this. So maybe it's a bit back to front, but there you are. This is the only time I have the bandwidth to take something like this on."

The big problem was Sally's husband, who was going to be building the cabin was not available now.

"He has a job which will take him away for most of the summer holidays," she said, "and I really want to get on with building it." Sally then went onto explain he ran businesses, some of which were in Italy.

"He is Italian you see," she said, "and so he has to go home at the beginning of the summer to sort some things out."

So basically it transpired Sally was offering David the job of building the log cabin for them. The amount of money she offered seemed more than generous to David. What made it even more compelling for him was that she had agreed with another teacher it could be his summer assignment for his woodwork class, and so it would count as homework too.

"Wow," said David now getting really excited, "so I can complete my homework and get paid all at once."

"Exactly," said Sally, "and if a project of that size doesn't get you an "A" then nothing will."

David immediately said yes, thanked her earnestly over and over, and then left with a smile on his face. The following Friday he would come over to the Raymond's house and build the basic frame. Then the following week he would work on completing the cabin and then doing whatever Sally needed to finish the project off. It was a great opportunity and he was delighted. Despite his apathy about Sally, he could not help thinking it would be pretty cool working for her. His friends would be so jealous, many of them were practically suicidal about losing Mrs. Raymond as a teacher. They would be green with envy when they knew he was getting to spend time with her at her house.

Part two

David drank his cold beer with enthusiasm. It had been a long hard day erecting the floor and walls of the log cabin. For one person it had been very strenuous. It had been tough work, but he was confident the rest of the project would be pretty straightforward and far less work than Sally had thought. In his mind he was sure another full day and he would have the job done.

It had been a little distracting for him that Sally had spent most of the day sunbathing in the garden. Although David had taken little interest in her at school seeing her in a two-piece swimsuit had been hard to ignore. Several times from up the ladder he had looked down on Sally laid out on the sun-bed. Once she had even come to the bottom of the ladder and looked up at him. She asked if he wanted a drink, but all he could think of was the view down her top. At that point he had felt a little shaky and he had gripped tightly onto the ladder. Several times he had been tempted to take a picture of her with his cell-phone. His friends would have freaked out if he showed them a picture of Mrs. Raymond in a bikini, but his courage had always failed him at the critical moment. It would be so embarrassing if she caught him.

Early in the afternoon David had watched fascinated as she applied sun cream to her legs. Her left hand started down at her ankle, then traced its way up her leg and as she reached her knee the other hand touched her shin and followed the other hand up her thighs. David wondered what her skin would feel like, soft and silky he imagined and his throat went dry with excitement. She slowly continued rubbing the cream into her thighs, using one hand, then the other, as David's mouth fell open. Her hands crossed and she rubbed her arms and her shoulders. It was at this point she turned and looked at David, and as their eyes met, a big warm smile crossed her face.

"You are staring David," she teased. She rested her head on her shoulder and rubbed at the top of her arm. When she looked back David had disappeared. Sally laughed quietly to herself, not quite so disinterested now, are you young man, she thought.

David quickly returned to work and for the rest of the afternoon he stayed hidden in the cabin. Too bashful to show his face, although the vision of Sally and her rubbing in sun-cream stayed with him. Eventually around six pm, Sally shouted his name and he reluctantly put down his tools and headed back to the house.

Now a dressed Sally was sitting opposite him. She looked relaxed, lounging back in a chair looking at him with a warm smile on her face. It seemed odd that she had called him into the lounge for a chat, when it seemed clear what needed to be done to the cabin. Despite her smile there seemed to be a tension in the air that made him wonder if he had done anything wrong. Surely a little staring could not have annoyed her that much?

Sally began to speak and for the first time he detected a very nervous tone in his teacher's voice.

"David I have something else I would like to talk to you about," said Sally, her voice a little shaky. David fidgeted in his seat, sensing the awkwardness in the air and worrying that she would not look him in the eyes.

"Before I do," said Sally, "Thank you for all your hard work on the cabin and what ever happens please know we will pay you in full, and will still want you to finish the project. OK?"

The only thing David found to say was, "thank you, miss."

Sally smiled, "call me Sally," she said.

"Sorry, force of habit," David replied, also smiling, and then after a silence that seemed to hang in the air, they both laughed. David felt relieved that the tension had lifted slightly.

"Basically, Paul my husband and I have a big problem," said Sally. "We want to have a baby and we can't. You see Paul has a low sperm count," said Sally, blurting her words out and talking across a sharp intake of breath from David.

At this point Sally squeezed her hands together tightly. She let the words sink in for a moment and then continued. David pondered her words as he watched her knuckles go white from the way she was pressing her hands together.

"Its just one of those things," she said, "but it give us a big dilemma. You see David, because Paul is a lot older than me, we cannot adopt and fertility treatment is well, so expensive, and not guaranteed to succeed. So we are stuck."

"I don't understand," said David. "I mean I understand what you have said, but what does it have to do with me?"

"Well I want to talk to you about becoming a surrogate father for a child," said Sally, this time more composed, but still unable to look David in the eyes as she spoke.

There was a long pause before anyone said anymore. Sally got up, walked around the room and then sat back down, allowing David to think for a moment about what had been said.

"I not sure I understand. If you want me to donate sperm or something then surely that involves fertility treatment." He said trying hard to sound calm and measured; when inside his heart was racing and stomach churning. It was turning into a very strange day.

"David, we would have to do it the natural way. We would have to sleep together," said Sally calmly. She had long rehearsed this line in her head, but she still felt she had messed it up. Perhaps there was no good way to ask something so unexpected. It had sounded very casual as though she had asked him something mundane, like would he wash the car? She groaned inside.

"I know it's a lot to ask and a lot to take in," she added quickly, in the hope she could recover control of the situation. Unsurprisingly David looked absolutely horrified. Sally feared he would walk out and so her heart sank and she wished she could start again, but it could not be unsaid. She had to carry on.

"What? No? No way!" said David, blurting the words out, as he absorbed what this meant. Finally he lamely said, "You are joking right?"

"I am not joking David, please, we need you. At least we need you to think about it," said Sally sounding as desperate as she could. "I need you to think about it. I know it's a lot to ask, but you are our only hope." She said.

"But, but, god, you could ask anyone at school," said David, "they all fancy you like mad." He turned red and stuttered at this point realizing he had said too much. She was after all his teacher, well ex-teacher anyway.

"I know," said Sally, measuring her words very carefully, "but that's why I chose you David. I wanted a calm, responsible, very mature student. Not the others who would just want to get into my pants and then not cope with the responsibility of keeping quiet. Someone Paul and I could trust, both to look after me and to keep this secret. Even this conversation could cost me my career David. I think you are an exceptional young man, who is very mature and intelligent," she said, her face showing how serious she was. "I wouldn't ask if I did not think you could cope. We very much need your help David, I am sorry to put this on you, but we are desperate. I need a child and you are our only hope."

David blushed at the compliments throughout Sally's little monolog and for the first time a tiny part of him considered how wonderful it might be to make love to his teacher. As he said most of his friends wouldn't hesitate at such an offer. The word "handsome" made him feel funny inside and he loved the fact she thought him to be good looking. Then the bubble burst and he thought about actually doing it and he realized he couldn't.

"There must be another way," said David.

"Trust me there isn't," replied Sally. "There just isn't." She began to cry.

"Anyway what does your husband think about it?" said David playing for time, embarrassed by the crying, and wishing he could just go home. He could not leave her in tears though.