When I f***ed the teacher

Running. In this heat. This summer was glorious. Full of hope.

It’s been hot, long and hot. Now the storm is edging in… taking over. It hit yesterday and that wasn’t the last of it. Fucking. Mr Cranwood.

I thought that would open up some sort of adult world for me; martinis and wearing a big man’s shirt and nothing underneath. It didn’t.

I think he went into teaching to remain in perpetual childhood. For all his muscle, his dick isn’t that big.

Bunny. She’s driving me mental. All these plans; University, winter skiing in Aspen again, next summer abroad together. I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell anyone.

I can hear my mother now. That asinine voice of hers: ‘But what do you mean Gerard? What do you mean done for?!’ He didn’t even comfort her. Neither did I. She just sat there, sobs eventually waning into an exhausted tremble. She’s drifted around silently since. Sometimes she just sits there, staring into the distance. I can’t work out whether she is genuinely mute with shock, or whether this is a form of demonstration to express the extent of her suffering to my father. Either way, it’s pathetic.

I’m sweating like a pig. Mr Cranwood keeps jumping around like an idiot. He’ll be way ahead with the boys soon, muscle and testosterone fuelling them ahead. He won’t even check that the rest of us are still here. Maybe it’s a tactic to make us scared. Worried we’ll get left behind we’ll panic-run ourselves into a coronary. The strong shall inherit the earth. Well enjoy, boys, because us ‘girls’ are lagging behind and you’ll realise you have no reason to show off once you get there.

Maybe I should get a job? I’m seventeen. I could try modelling. Acting. It seems like too much hard work. I am exhausted alone by playing ‘Jackie’ for my classmates. Jesus Mr Cranwood is annoying. He put his whole hand in my mouth last night, a big grin on his face as if this was some sort of achievement. I let him. I opened my mouth and stretched it wider for his intruding fist. I don’t really know why. Fuck it. I can drive. Before they take away the cars and the jewellery, the nice clothes and the silver, I’ll shove as much as I can in the boot of the Jag and just speed off. I’ll drive to France and start my new life there. What’s stopping me?

Should have paid more attention in French class. When you’re young you think life just moves along a specific route. Predestined for you but not limited to you. It’s everyone you knows’ path, and you talk with your friends about that path, feeling like yours is unique to you as an individual, but you’re too dumb to realise you’re all talking about the same empty fantasy. You’ll be popular in school, you’ll fall in love, you’ll get married, you’ll have sex, have children and just… be happy. I never questioned that, but then, Mr Cranwood. Embezzlment.

This whole added layer of ‘the path’ as something completely random, uncertain, has started to appear in the distance. The future is massive. Twisted. Is it even there? 

What meaning does my future have? What form? We are all haunted by the monster that is money. We are trying to catch it, to grab more of it so that it doesn’t consume us first. I love money. I get a buzz from the crispness of a fresh twenty pound note. I smile inwardly  at the sturdy comfort of pound coins rubbing up against each other in my pocket. More of it means more of me. I can be big with money. I can expand and spread. I can laugh and I can drink martinis in the afternoon, and Mr Cranwood can eat my fucking hand.