Chapter 198: Teacher
*Some students go an entire day at school without anyone saying their name. be the adult who speaks to each student by name. Everyone loves to hear their name. – Educator Justin Tarte*
Every night, Jolene sat between Neo’s legs and would read to him. Some nights the passages were nothing more than written porn. Other nights, they were sweet, or amusing. After the first few nights of carefully curated smut scenes, he chose a book, and they would read a few chapters each night.
They were on book three of a series of five tonight and she was having a hard time concentrating. The light touch of his calloused hands under her shirt did not help her concentration. Nor did his mouth on her neck.
Certainly, the bulge at her lower back was a bit distracting.
“Something’s on your mind.” He whispered and then lightly bit her earlobe.
“No…” she tried to brush off his observation and he simply chuckled at her.
“Either your distracted or the prince says the same thing to the knight twelve times.”
“He’s a warrior, not a knight.” Jolene argued quietly.
“Same difference.” He countered as he moved to her other ear. “I like your hair short like this.”
She had gotten her hair cut a few days before and had gone back to the swing bob. She had grown her hair out for the same reason that she had originally cut it short after leaving Hank.
Because she could.
It was her choice,
Her decision.
She had met some of the subs at the club that did not have those choices. Those decisions. Neo had told her that she was her own person. He was not that type of a Master and had never wanted a slave.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” he murmured under her other ear.
Sighing, Jolene closed the book and tossed it onto the table. “Am I doing the right thing? Going back to school?”
“Yes, Pet, I think you are.” He shifted them and pulled her more into his chest as he leaned against the arm of the couch. His hands stilled on her stomach, ceasing their slow seduction.
“I think,” he said resting his chin on the top of her head, “that getting your master’s degree is going to make you an even better teacher. You’ll have a little more experience, and a lot more knowledge.”
“I’m just…” she sighed again and slid her hands under the IGYS T-shirt and linked their fingers. Softly, she whispered what was really on her mind. “What if I’m not a good teacher? What if I’m just not good enough?”
“Oh, my sweet, sweet pet.” He smiled as he pressed a kiss to her head. “You’re not going to be a good teacher. You’re going to be a great teacher.”
If Neo had said that a year ago, Hank’s voice of him declaring that she was going to be the best teacher ever would have echoed through her mind. She would have sunk into the darkness that still haunted her on some days. Her confidence would have plummeted.
But tonight, none of that happened.
Neo wasn’t saying that Jolene would be a great teacher because it would reflect good on him.
He said that she would be a great teacher because he believed it.
“You’ve been at the top of your class. You did your student teaching and even had a job offer from your school. You have students that invited you to their sports events and the community plays.”
“The students connected with you, they liked you and they sought you out. They came to you for advice and much needed friendship.”
She smiled as she thought about her semester of teaching. Her student advisor had suggested that she not do elementary but try the junior high school. That had made it easier for her since she did not have to see Matt every day. The few times that she had seen man, the ‘lesson’ to keep another man’s name out of her mouth flooded her mind.
The first time she had seen him, she had broken down and cried for over an hour. Jolene knew after that meeting that she could not work with him. Her reaction to seeing Tori had not been as bad, but it also proved that she could not work at Jackson Elementary.
Tori and Matt had both been sympathetic and offered her any help that she might need. They were Facebook friends and had seen each other at district functions while she was a student teacher. She had even gone to a few dinners with teachers that the two friends were at.
Each time, Matt would smile at her from across the room and let her know that he was there. But he never forced her to interact with him. Jolene knew that Matt’s partner, Nelson, who was also Tori’s brother, worked for Neo.
“What do you know of Nelson?” she asked quietly as they sat there with their fingers linked under her shirt.
“Joseph Nelson or Nelson Christiansen?”
“I don’t know.” She admitted softly. “I saw Matt and him at graduation the other night.”
“Ah, Joseph Nelson. He works at one of the secure locations. Since he’s gay as the day is long, his words, not mine,” he chuckled at some private joke, “women feel safer around him.”
“I can see that.”
“Matt’s a good guy too. He’s a hell of a cook, too.” Neo chuckled again. “When I first met him, he introduced himself as Matt Day-Long.”
“As gay as the day is long.” Jolene giggled.
“Yeah. Unless you are paying close attention, you hear his real name, de Leon. Or as he says, Day Long.”
They sat in comfortable silence for another moment before Neo spoke again.
“You want to know why I think that you’ll be such a good teacher?”
“Why?”
“I’ve seen you interact with your students. You remember them. You connect with them. Calling them each by their name, or their preferred name.”
Smiling, Jolene knew the young teen that Neo was referencing. It had been her third or fourth week at teaching when he came to class. Short hair and baggy clothes, trying desperately to be *seen* while not being noticed. The boy had handed Jolene a piece of paper that had a new schedule and a sticky note from the principal attached to it.
Stephanie was now Stephen.
Jolene smiled at the boy and welcomed him to her class. She was the only teacher that never used the dead name and acknowledged him as who he saw himself as. The last week of school he brought her a set of VIP tickets to his play that would be next weekend. Along with the tickets was a playbill for opening night.
His parents had taken out a full-page ad thanking the community for embracing their son and helping their family through a difficult period. Jolene Dunning was the only person not part of the theater group that they thanked by name.
“That’s why I know that you’re going to be a great teacher. You have the heart for it. You are exactly where you need to be.”
Turning in his arms, she kissed him lightly. “I love you.”
Releasing her hands, he moved her so that she was straddling his legs. “I love you.”
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