Three More Wishes: Be Kind To Your Genie (7 page)

BOOK: Three More Wishes: Be Kind To Your Genie
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Chapter 12
I Confront Mr. Bender

Some parents deserve to be lied to. They’re untrusting, they don’t listen, and they don’t consider anything that is important to their child to be “truly” important.

But my parents weren’t like that. Quite the opposite, in fact. So I felt like shit, lying to them.

“...So then I said to Jorje and Nathan, ‘I’m taking your girlfriends.’ I was joking around, trying to shock them. I never in a million years expected either of them to say, ‘Okay.’ But they
both
said that. So what was I supposed to say then? ‘Cancel that, I changed my mind, I’m not man enough to have sex with two girls’?”

I’d realized that I couldn’t lie to my folks about taking Kristin and Elena from the school parking lot—there were too many witnesses who’d tell the real story. And not even my parents would believe that, once I’d taken these two luscious girls, we’d spent a G-rated night eating pizza at CiCi’s. So I was playing a dangerous game: being truthful about the What, and lying out my ass about the Why and How.

I continued, “So I took them to this motel, I don’t remember the name of it, it’s in the industrial part of town on Woodrow Wilson.”

Lying to my parents about why and how I’d gotten in bed with Kristin and Elena, this bothered me terribly. God, I wanted to tell my parents about the brass lamp, about Fatima, about Uncle Warren’s wishes and my own.
I’m giving off magical pheromones
, I wanted to tell my parents,
and they make almost everyone act weird.
The only problems with full disclosure to my folks were One, what would I tell them? I was still not sure what exactly Fatima had done. And Two, what if my folks blabbed about the lamp to the wrong people? I did
not
want my parents put in danger, and Fatima deserved better than having (another) lowlife for a Master.

I replied, “Condoms? Of course I used condoms.” I didn’t tell my folks that I’d been optimistic and bought two boxes.

“Did they seem unwilling, those girls?” my mother asked.

“They seemed resigned at first, but they didn’t hide in the bathroom, if that’s what you’re asking. Or scream for the cops. And eventually they enjoyed it.”

My father said, “Meaning that they...?”

“Yes, Dad, they did. They
definitely
did. Do I want everyone at school to think I’m a dork?”

Mom said, “But what about—?”

“Mom, Dad,” I said, standing up, “it’s late and I have trig homework still to do.”

I really,
really
needed to talk to Fatima soon.

****

Climbing the stairs to go to my bedroom, I felt weary. I’d had a hard day (pun intended), and hadn’t gotten home till late, and then my parents had insisted on grilling me. And I had to be at school early tomorrow, which meant getting up early. And I hadn’t been lying about the trig homework—I needed to get started on that. Add to all that, I hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night—no shit, I was tired right now.

But fuck the trig homework, fuck the sleep, I needed to talk to Fatima! As I was putting the key in the footlocker’s padlock, I heard the doorbell ring.

This late, I figured it was an embarrassed neighbor at the door: “My dog escaped. Have you seen it?” Let Dad handle that.

I had the brass lamp in my left hand, and was just about to rub it with my right hand, when my father’s voice yelled, “MARVIN! GIRL AT THE DOOR, SAYS SHE NEEDS TO TALK TO YOU.”

Shit!

I tossed the brass lamp under my bed, then went downstairs.

****

It was Kristin at the door. She had a paper bag with her.

“What’s up, Kristin? It’s late.”

“Oh gosh, Marvin, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad—”

“How can I be mad at the woman who gave me her virginity? But you need to get to the point.”

“You told us, ‘I prefer you wear the highest heels you can walk in,’ right?”

“Go on.”

Kristin picked up the paper bag; inside were two pairs of women’s shoes. She told me, “The brown shoes have a quarter-inch higher heel, but with the blue shoes, I can wear a sexier dress. Which should I wear tomorrow?”

“Brown shoes.” Then I kissed Kristin goodnight, and sent her and her bag of shoes home.

Once I got back upstairs in my bedroom, I was really feeling tired. What did I still need to do, before I could go to bed? Set the alarm clock to an earlier setting, talk to Fatima, and do my Trig.

But I felt so, so sleepy. Fine, I’d lay my head on the pillow for a few minutes, and take a brief nap. Then watch me get cracking...

****

I woke up at 6:30 and smiled. How about that, I’d awakened before my alarm went off! Then I remembered that I’d never bothered to reset my alarm, and was supposed to be getting up
now
.

I sat straight up. And that’s when I remembered the trig homework undone, and the genie not talked to.

Shit, that does it—this evening, I don’t care if all the models from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue march into my bedroom and beg for sex, I’m making time to talk to Fatima.

That is, after I tutor Anna Kay, of course.

Once out of bed, I rushed around, showering and getting dressed. I was pleased that I remembered to lock the brass lamp back in the footlocker, what with all the other things on my mind.

I was so distracted, I almost didn’t notice what my mirror was showing me. I was 6′0″ now, and muscular. Not Arnold-muscular, but I had a definite taper from shoulders to waist, and all my shirts claimed to be custom-made.

****

At 7:16, I was walking toward Plato Smith High School’s main doors. Ahead of me were Natasha, and some girl in a purple blouse who was following behind Natasha. I didn’t recognize the girl, but at first I didn’t give her any thought.

But once at the door, Natasha didn’t pull it open, but instead stopped dead. At that point, the purple-dressed girl who’d been walking behind, rushed up to the door and pulled it open for Natasha.

Wait, hold on—that was Harold who was holding the door for Natasha. How could I have mistaken Harold for—

Elena ran out the door as fast as her high heels would permit. “We have a problem. Mr. Bender has taken Kristin to his office.”

I said, “What happened, he shanghai her as soon as she stepped through the door?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

It looked like I was about to give my magic pheromones a real workout.

With Mr. Bender, you know the drill: a defensive linesman in college, didn’t get picked up by the pros, became a high-school football coach, and then eventually an assistant principal. In short, a man who both looked intimidating and acted intimidating.

And I was about to face the monster in its lair.

I strode into the school office, a
cla-cla-clack
behind me telling me that Elena was trying hard to keep up with me.

(Now Reader, let me describe what Elena was wearing, since you’re dying to know. Head to toe, she was wearing some kind of wine-red dangling earrings, a white pearl choker necklace, a white blouse with the top button unbuttoned, a wine-red skirt, white stockings, and wine-red skyscraper stilettos. The skirt was
maybe
“fingertips length”—if Elena bent her elbow slightly and Mr. Bender didn’t notice. As for “[f]ootwear must meet community standards for appropriateness,” Elena could argue that at least she wasn’t wearing porn-actress platform heels. All in all, Elena’s outfit complimented her dark-brown skin, as well as acting as an R-rated parody of our school colors.)

As I hurried into the school office, a woman in her forties looked up in surprise. “You can’t—”

“Yes, we can,” I said. “He has Kristin.”

One of the disadvantages of being a straight-A student (besides the fact that 83.2 percent of straight-A students die as virgins) is: having no knowledge of where the assistant principal’s office is. I wasted valuable seconds, reading nameplates on doors.

But then I figured out: Head toward the loud male voice. That had to be Bender who was saying, “
Young lady, Plato Smith has standards for a reason, and dressing like—

I burst in, looked Kristin up and down, and said, “She’s dressed like a wood nymph.”


Marvin!
” Kristin squealed, and ran to hug me (as fast as her shoes would permit).

(I’ve already told you that Kristin has light-brown hair. She also has hazel eyes. And you already know that she came to school wearing brown fuck-me shoes. In Bender’s office, her earrings, necklace, and belt were dark green; her stockings were bark-brown; and her dress was light brown. It was that dress that was giving Mr. Bender conniptions. If Elena’s hemline was borderline high, there was no question about Kristin’s hemline being inappropriate. Plus, Kristin’s dress had twin slits, going all the way up to the hips.
And
Kristin’s dress was held up with a halter, showing lots of her back and her shoulders in the process. That dress broke two, maybe three dress-code rules all by itself.)

Mr. Bender puffed up like a poisonous fish. “What are you...?”

Then he started blinking, and I guessed he was feeling the magic pheromones.

That’s it, nice and submissive, Mr. Bender, nice and submissive.

Then fire returned to his eyes, as he pulled his shoulders back. “Who are you, and what the
fuck
are you doing in my office?”

He was resisting. This was not good.

I was nervous now, but I didn’t show that. “I’m Marvin Harper, these two belong to me, I told them to dress up for me, and I have a
problem
with you contradicting me, Anthony!”

“You have a problem?” he said sarcastically.

Then he took a step toward me. “
You
have a problem?”

“Back up, Anthony,” I said.

Then Mr. Bender took another step toward me. “You’re about to get yourself a three-week suspension which, if you’re a Senior, will
really
be a problem!”


Back up!
” I yelled.

But he stepped forward again; now his chest was a foot away from mine. This close to him, I noticed that he was two inches taller than me. Meanwhile, Mr. Bender was saying, “So, Marvin Harper, the wise thing for
you
—”

He made a move to poke his finger at my chest. And to the surprise of us both, my left forearm zoomed up and around, knocking his hand aside.

After a second of silence, I said in a tough voice, “You startled me.”

Mr. Bender blinked, then he looked me up and down—then his shoulders slumped and he stepped back. He said, “Your ... woman Kristin is clearly in violation of the school dress code.”

“Which you enforce.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Elena and I graduate in 2-1/2 weeks. I might add others to my group before then. What I want is, friends of mine get a free pass for dress-code stuff through Graduation Day.”

“And what if Kelly Brown gets sent to the office for her one-millionth dress-code violation, and she tells me, ‘Oh, I’m one of Marvin’s women’?”

I didn’t tell Bender that the magic pheromones guaranteed that such a thing would never happen. Instead, I said, “If anyone invokes my name, call me out of class. That way, no guesswork.”

“And what do I do if Mr. Chandler gets on my case about not enforcing the rules?”

“Then you let me know, and I go talk to Mr. Chandler. Your job is under my protection now, just as these women’s safety is.”

Elena clapped. “I like the sound of
that
.”

“Me too,” Kristin said.

Mr. Bender walked to the window. With his back to me and his shoulders slumped, he said, “Very well, Marvin Harper. Friends of yours get a free pass for dress-code violations through Graduation Day.”

Kristin and Elena were almost bouncing on their toes from excitement. But I put my finger to my lips and, as quietly as a monk and two nuns, we walked out of Mr. Bender’s office.

Once we were out in the hallway, Kristin said, “Wow, can you believe how Mr. Bender backed off from Marvin? You know
why
, don’t you?”

I said, “Um...” I wasn’t about to explain to the girls about magic pheromones.

But meanwhile, Elena was saying, “Because Mr. Bender realized: If they fight, Marvin will win. Last night, we fucked a
hero
!”

And I realized that Elena was right.
Holy shit!
I thought.

****

After hitting our lockers, Kristin, Elena, and I were walking down the hallway, with roughly ten minutes before the first-period Tardy Bell. Rather, I was walking, and the woman to either side of me was sashaying. You’d never know from watching Kristin move that she had been a virgin (or to clarify, a penis-virgin) for 99.992 percent of her life.

I said, “I promised Mr. Bender that I would protect his job. Remember me saying that?”

I got
uh-huh
s from both of them.

“You can bet that he won’t talk about what happened in there, and I choose not to. So the only way that word’s gonna get out is, one of you talk. And I will be very keenly disappointed in you two if stories about this start flying. I walked into Mr. Bender’s office, we talked, we came to an agreement, end of story. Got it?”

“We won’t disappoint you,” Elena said.

Kristin said, “But Marvin, um, can we ask why? Mr. Bender can really be a prick to LGBT students. He deserves payback.”

I was silent, while I considered how to answer that. My answer had something to do with the realization that I was now tall enough, and strong enough, that I could slam well over half the boys in this school into lockers,
and yet I had no wish to
.

Eventually I said, “In life, there are guys who lose fights, and guys who win fights. But a true winner, having knocked a man flat, reaches out his hand and helps the other guy stand again. Humiliating a defeated opponent is the mark of a scumbag. I’m better than that. Or I try to be.”

Kristin said, “I’m glad you chose us.”

“Totally agree,” said Elena.

Roaming the halls, the three of us had come upon Nathan Brennan talking to another large student. Both guys turned to stare at us.

BOOK: Three More Wishes: Be Kind To Your Genie
2.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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