Shiny! (3 page)

Kenny grabbed
everything—
sanitizing wipes, lubricant,
everything
—and shoved it all into the plastic bag willy-nilly. Giant dildos, cock rings, the penis pump, the flesh jack, the nipple clamp/cock ring combo, the progressive turquoise butt plugs that loosened you up so you
could
use the giant dildos, the bright-green vibrating egg, the double-sided wang—all that shit had to go. It barely fit in the bag—Kenny dropped two different vibrators three times on the way out, but eventually he used both hands, covered by the extra plastic bag, and shoved the whole mess on top of the drapes. The lid of the garbage can was open a little, but Kenny didn’t have time to think about that right now. He needed to go strip the bed and wash the sheets.

He was still in his boxers, loading the washing machine, when he heard the hollow thump-and-clatter of a vehicle hitting a trash can, and that was when he knew that the impossible had happened.

His day had just gotten worse.

N
INA
LOOKED
over her shoulder to see that Ashley was still standing patiently in line, waiting for cake.

“Oh my God—so you were
living
with a guy—”

“Gifford Boyle—scumbag extraordinaire. We’d been living there for about a year.” Kenny took a sip of the punch Ashley had brought him at the beginning of the story, right when he was talking about the house and before he’d stripped down to his underwear.

Will let out a sound approximating a growl, and Nina looked at him in surprise.

“William, that sounded downright possessive!”

William could feel his face tighten and his eyes narrow and his jaw grind, and only Kenny’s pat on his leg kept him from breaking something.

“It’s okay, precious,” Kenny said, keeping his voice light. “The big bad man is all gone now—no need to go into attack mode anymore.”

Nina crossed her legs under her fluffy tulle dress and rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand. “This is the best wedding present
ever
,” she said breathlessly. “Keep talking!”

“Does that mean we can take back our gif—” Kenny began excitedly.

“No,” Nina cut him off. “Whatever it is, I must have it, to remind me of this story right here.”

Will smiled to himself, because Kenny had picked out a lovely art deco fruit bowl from Williams-Sonoma that Kenny himself had coveted. Will had gone in and bought the same glass bowl in a lime green instead of a turquoise-tinted glass the next day—it was waiting at home on the table as a sort of present.

“Good,” Kenny sniffed. “I wouldn’t have taken it back anyway. Will—hon, the next part of the story is yours.”

Will smiled and blushed and bit his lip.

“So yeah, William,” Nina began, batting her pretty blue eyes at him. “What were you doing while Kenny here was throwing out sex toys in his boxer shorts?”

Will grimaced. “Me? I was getting fired.”

“For
what
?” Nina sounded outraged, which was nice—it meant she thought he was reliable.

“For Harry Potter, really,” William said, thinking about it. “See, I was teaching fifth grade at the church school across the street….”

Magic

“B
UT
M
R
.
Lafferty, I don’t
want
to read the school story. It’s boring.”

Will sighed. Yeah, it was a Christian school—the curriculum was Bible oriented and, well, watered-down Bible at that. If Charlton Heston could make Moses seem interesting, you’d think a school in the modern age could. Well, Will knew better, didn’t he?

“’Kay, Carter. I understand. But if you read the school story by Monday so I can pass you for progress reports, you can read something from my shelf after that.”

Carter was a plain kid, with brown eyes, a sort of square face, and a thick but able brain. Will could completely identify. Will looked at this kid, saw himself, and thought,
Hey—if someone could show this kid a whole new world, maybe he won’t go out, get a shitty low-paying job, and marry the first girl who feels sorry for him.

And then he realized that was probably what was going to happen to
him
, six years of college or not, and got depressed. But that didn’t keep him from trying.

And in this case, Carter’s face lit up. “Yeah? Because the other kids are talking about the
Star Wars
books—those sound neat!”

Will grinned. “Absolutely. But work first, play later.”
Because work is never as much fun as the playing. Ever. It’s impossible.
But that was another secret grown-up truth Will kept to himself.

The kid nodded eagerly and turned around to take off, almost running into Miss Maggie, the terrifying principal of the little church school in the run-down neighborhood.

Miss Maggie paused in the doorway and perused Will’s room, and Will grinned at her, hoping she’d like what he’d done with the place over the past eight months. Well, sure, it was just a little portable building, like much of the school, but he’d imbued it with book posters and movie posters—age appropriate, of course—and, hopefully, some charm, which would make attending a parochial school somewhat appealing.

Miss Maggie grimaced. She did not, all things considered, look appealed to. “Will, you
are
aware that you teach in a parochial Christian school, aren’t you?”

Will tucked his hands in the pockets of his brown corduroys and shuffled his feet. “Nice to see you today, Miss Maggie!” he said, and she shook her head.

“Will, answer the question, please. You do know this is a church school. You’re aware it’s a rather conservative denomination and this is a private school run through the church, right? We hired you in September, and it’s May. Please tell me that set in.”

Aw, hell. What had he done now?

“Well, yeah, Miss Maggie,” he said, trying to smile. “That’s why I get paid the big bucks!”

The formidable woman with the iron-gray hair pulled back in the old-fashioned bun was not amused. She should have been—private schools paid fully three-quarters of what public schools did, and in California (well, in anywhere, really) that first figure wasn’t enough to pay the rent.

Which was why Will worked a second job as a web designer in his spare time. His business was picking up—he made almost as much doing that as he did teaching, but
damn
,
did he not want to try living on that income at this juncture.

“Will, you know you signed a contract that said that even though you don’t attend church here, you had to live your life by the same morality code.”

“Uhm, yeah?” Sadly enough, nothing in Will’s life had violated anybody’s morality code in quite some time. Or by much of a margin, really.

“Then you’re aware that all of this”—she indicated with a sweeping gesture—“is a clear violation of your contract?” And effectively she swept away Will’s free-reading bookshelf, painfully built up from garage sales, library sales, and Scholastic book donations.

Will gaped at her, sure there was a joke somewhere, but he didn’t see it. Miss Maggie’s reddened features were sternly lined, and she glared at him from under thick black brows and behind thick black-framed glasses. Her long denim skirt and blue polo shirt might have
seemed
casual, but since women weren’t allowed to wear pants in this denomination, Will knew it for the uniform it was.

“They’re books,” he said weakly, trying a smile. “Good books. The kids love them!”

Miss Maggie shook her head, and for the first time, Will saw some compassion in her uncompromising features. Her flat, grim mouth even relaxed for a moment. “Look—don’t take this personally, okay? I know you’re a good person—and probably even a good teacher. But you’re teaching at a church school. I’m not sure you realize what that means.”

Will nodded and spread his arms in a “Hey, look at me!” gesture. “I’m a totally average, normal, Christian-looking dude!” he claimed. He
was.
His entire demeanor had been carefully crafted, from brown corduroy pants to brown-and-cream plaid button-up shirt, with T-shirt underneath in spite of the spring day in the nineties. His plain brown hair was unremarkably cut, swept from a side part across his brow in a style that was probably fifty years old, and his brown oxfords were the same shoes worn by boring teachers who had needed the Dr. Scholl’s inserts since time before time.

Miss Maggie grimaced and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Will, we don’t ask you to be a member of our church—or even to be a totally average-looking man. But what’s
in your head
does not conform to our curriculum. First, there was evolution—”

Will swallowed. “Okay, in my defense, I had no idea that was a religious thing. I thought it was just common sen—yeah. I’m sorry. No dinosaurs again, I swear.”

Again, that almost grandmotherly look of compassion as she gestured to the bookshelf. “Will? Harry Potter? Witchcraft. Sorcery. Percy Jackson—that’s mythology, the worship of other gods.
The Primrose Path
—that one completely denounces the church’s missionary work. Charlie Bone,
The Chronicles of Prydain,
Robin McKinley—do you have a book on this shelf that clears church guidelines?”

Will had a complete, horrified moment of disconnect. “Those books aren’t in the church guidelines?” he asked weakly.

Miss Maggie raised her eyebrows and shook her head like this was common knowledge.

“But… but… this is… you know, twenty-first-century America—this is… just literature! These kids go home and watch reality television and they can’t read Harry Potter?”

“We have no control over what the kids read or see when they’re at home,” Miss Maggie told him. “But when they’re
here
,
the reading has to meet the requirements of the church. But more than that—Will, you have an
X-Files
poster behind your desk! It says
Trust No One—
we spend twenty minutes in prayer every day asking the kids to trust in God. Has it occurred to you that maybe you’re just not cut out for this job?”

Will felt his lower lip quiver. “But… I
love
teaching!” he said frantically, because he did. He loved the dumb fifth-grade jokes the kids told, he loved watching the boys become all elbows and knees and the girls start doing their hair and realizing they were taller, older, and smarter than the boys. He loved watching that whole “aha” thing go down, when they
got
something, and being the one to stretch their little brains out and have them get the next thing, and the next, and the next.

“Maybe so,” Miss Maggie said dubiously, “but ask yourself, do you love teaching
here
?”

“But….” Will flailed. “There’s nowhere else hiring!” And fuck him if there was! God, in spite of the fact that most fifth graders were crammed into a classroom with thirty-five other kids like raisins in a teeny box, taxpayers and governments seemed to think that was
dandy
,
and teachers were coming out of college with nowhere to go. After San Juan—one of the biggest districts in the state—had laid him off, Will had spent two years subbing in some of the worst districts in NorCal, happy that he was at
least
using his credential. Hell, he’d been
thrilled
to land a job at a private school. And since it
was
a private school, he was probably the only person there
with
a credential. In fact, he was probably the only teacher there who
didn’t
attend the church, and apparently, that made him expendable. And, well, it wasn’t like private schools had a union.

Miss Maggie was nodding as if to confirm his worst fears. “They’ve taken their STAR tests already, Will. We can have a church elder take over your class for the next month. The one thing we ask our teachers is that church policies be upheld, and it’s not a sin on your part, but I really don’t think it’s something you can do. Please have your stuff cleared out of the classroom before the end of the weekend—but don’t come during church services, if you can.”

“I can do it right now,” Will said numbly.

It took an hour.

An hour, and the past eight months of his life were effectively packed into the back of his car—which was his mother’s
old
car, a brown Oldsmobile—and Will was on the phone with the girl who’d been unsubtly hinting they should go out.

“No, Denise,” he said wearily. “I don’t know why they fired me. Something about Harry Potter—”

“The
movie
?” she snapped, and Will grunted, starting the car so he didn’t have to sit in the heat.

“No, Den, the books. I let the kids read them—”

“In a
Christian school
?”

Okay, well, that sealed it. Will was apparently too dumb to teach fifth grade. “They loved them,” he said disconsolately. “They loved them—
Star Wars
was okay, how was I to know—” He looked up and saw Miss Maggie staring at the back of his car from the entrance to the church proper, and figured he needed to pull away. It was a simple residential road—he could be off the phone by the time he hit Sunrise Boulevard, where a CHP officer really
might
bust him for cell phone use.

Carefully, he pulled forward while Denise continued to chew him out. “Jesus, Will, how are you going to pay your bills? Remember we were talking about going wine tasting?”

“I don’t want to go wine tasting,” he told her bluntly, because he’d been trying to get out of it
nicely
,
but that was when he still had brain cells for tact. “
You
want to go wine tasting.
I
want to stay home and work on my business!”

“But your business is just a pipe dream—how are we going to
live
?”

“We?” He actually looked at the phone.

And then hit a garbage can in the middle of the street.

“
Fuck
!” he swore from the pit of his stomach.

“
Will
!” Denise shrieked, because he
never
swore.