Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Restraint

by E. R.
Contact The Writer
Copyright © by E. R., May 2010

They met at the beginning of Teresa’s senior year of high school. Ms. White was, at that time, deeply entrenched in the school system; she was a charismatic teacher who rarely said no and had progressive ideas about teaching and tenure—she had been teaching English there for eight years—and a jocular manner that some students found overwhelming. Because of this, there had been a couple reservations about promotions, and she was just now beginning to teach the Advanced English class, which Teresa was in.

They took to each other immediately. Theirs was a teacher-student bond marked not only by mutual respect and understanding but by real affection, and something more, some undercurrent of electricity it took all of us a while to understand. By November, I think it was obvious to Ms. White more or less what would end up happening; for Teresa, it took a little longer; but then, on some level, I think they knew as soon as they saw each other at the end of August.

They were going to sleep together. By Christmas it was obvious in the way they laughed at each other’s jokes, the way Teresa was so often hanging around Ms. White’s room on her off periods, talking about class work, mostly, but also dogs and art and cherries and music and balloons and alligators. It was also evident in the way she was respectfully quiet during class unless she was called on. She seemed to recognize, on the same level she knew they would end up together, that Ms. White’s job was important, at least to her, and she stayed out of it. She never interfered, never caused any complaints, but all the time there was this electricity. We wondered if they would ever get tired of it.

Teresa turned eighteen when we got back from winter break, and from then on things were a little different between them. You could see the strain; it deepened almost imperceptibly every week that went by, because they were both realizing, I think, how close that event was to possible now that Teresa was legally an adult. Just a skin kept them from doing it at school, I used to joke, but I knew intuitively that approach was taking it too easy. What would happen between them was going to be too cataclysmic to be contained by the fragile shell of the school building.

Things got stressful at the beginning of April. It was crunch time; the AP tests were in one month, and we were all beginning to realize just how close that was. We began to stay at home more, studying nervously for hours at a time, if that was our style, or staying out late in the afternoons in defiance, playing football or going to parties and talking in loud, hunted tones. And things started happening.

It was at the dance, one of the few that Teresa went to and one of the relatively frequent school events that Ms. White chaperoned (as a single teacher and one who could rarely say no she was often asked), that it happened. Later, it was thought that they were found kissing in the janitor’s closet, but that couldn’t have been true; the incident would have been investigated, and Ms. White certainly would not have been there on Monday, smiling and talking and teaching as usual. Someone said Teresa confronted Ms. White, had said that this farce had to stop, that she loved her, but I don’t think that would have happened either. Something happened though; it was evident on both of their faces for the rest of the month. I saw them come as close as they had come to having an argument, but in the fervor of April that was not untoward.

The AP test was on May 9th that year, and we had the day off, although the entire test took under two hours. Although I was not in school, I heard that Ms. White was not there either, and I also heard that she and Teresa had finally slept together. I didn’t quite believe it until I saw them together, the next day: there was a satiated quality between them that was at the same time more stressful than their previous relationship. And the day after that—that afternoon, to be honest, after all the kids had gone home—all hell broke loose. The principal came by to have a quiet talk with Ms. White; I tried to listen in on what they were saying from the hallway, but I couldn’t hear more than a couple of exquisitely tense murmurs. In the morning, Teresa was called to the office. Ms. White was there that day, and during English class, when most people were chattering about graduation and the prom and the test, they were looking at each other. Their eyes were glittering and seemed to turn from regret to respect to gladness in an instant. That was when I saw the first physical contact between them; when Teresa was leaving, Ms. White touched her lightly on the shoulder. Teresa looked briefly back at her over her shoulder and smiled. I was watching after she left, though, and I could see something in Ms. White’s eyes as she watched Teresa’s back going down the hall that gave me the shivers.

We all talk about it now, in the teacher’s room—not the case of Ms. White and Teresa, but about loving students in general. How do you get to really love the little shits? some of them ask; and, How could anyone do something so reprehensible? How could you live with yourself? And I always defend the morality of restraining yourself. I know; I almost had an affair with a student a few years, or for a moment the possibility had entered the room and floated over our heads for a couple of minutes like a red-headed vulture. That makes me an expert, gives me a knowing glint in my eye. But I am thinking about Teresa and Ms. White when I talk about it. I’m thinking about that last, loving look.

If you have enjoyed E. R.'s "Restraint", then please be certain to Contact The Writer and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of E. R.'s Stories at Sapphic Voices Authoresses.

Copyright © 1997-2010 Sapphic Voices. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all site content is entirely owned and is solely maintained by Sapphic Voices.
Absolutely no portion of this page may be reproduced either electronically or otherwise without the express
and written permission of the copyright holder, except as occurs in normal browser caching and page indexing.