teacher or several other teachers to take over during the time period. Mara explained that new teachers also had to teach in summer session the first few semesters. There was no option. But the faculty could excuse her for good and sufficient reasons during one of their association meetings.
'Sounds like a good idea. Plenty of fringe benefits in being nice to your fellow workers,' Mara smiled. 'Why not?'
Ruth Peter's eyes changed and her voice became a little ominous. 'I'd better warn you that there are also some fringe penalties involved when you mix with faculty.'
Mara laughed. 'Really? Like what?'
'Like having some male bastard of a teacher go after you and pawing you at faculty parties or picnics. Or calling you at night, trying to date you.'
'Oh I can handle that,' Mara said quickly.
'I hope you can.' Ruth said evenly, 'because as you must know by now I am quite possessive and the mere thought of some man pawing you gives me the willies. So be careful at the picnic next week. Don't come on too strong with the men. Just give them a big smile, a firm handshake and make a little small talk. You know about Burma and London and European life-styles. Then move on to another person.'
Ruth warned her that there were several swingers in the faculty. 'They'll try to get you to bed in every clichй maneuver you ever dreamed of or saw on the silver screen. Ask you to come up to their apartments to dine, to discuss pupils-too busy to do it at school, don't you know-and even pretend to be ill so you can come up and cook for them. One girl did just that and got raped an hour after she arrived.'
The worst offenders, Ruth informed her, were Joe Mills, a paunchy middle-aged type, who was in the English department and went after everything in skirts or pantyhose, and Tom Leonard, a young history instructor who thought of himself as God's gift to woman because of his striking resemblance to Paul Newman.
Mills was by far the most odious type, Ruth said with a scowl. He liked to get into crowded elevators when the cafeteria on the top floor emptied and press his member against a girl's bottom.
'One day he just got behind me and pressed! Hard against my backside,' Ruth recalled with a wince. 'I could feel his damned cock growing against my bottom but he had a perfect excuse. The elevator was heavily crowded. Then to my horror, he began to move his cock. At first I thought I was imagining things. But no, the bastard had an enormous hard-on and was pressing it between the cheeks of my behind. If he could have he would lifted my skirt and tried to plunge into my bare ass. I could even hear the rat breathing hard as he got worked up, dry screwing that way. I wanted to tell him to stop, complain, but then I realized how embarrassing it would all be. There would have to be an official hearing, like the time a physical ed instructor was found in the cubicle of the ladies room after hours, going down on a teen-aged pupil, some dumb little girl who wanted solid A's for a scholarship. The hearing was noised all over town, in the papers.
'Which reminds me,' Ruth said. 'You may run into trouble from boys in your class, too. Some of these kids are eighteen and they get a lech for a beautiful young teacher and try to make her. Best thing is to be on your guard against anyone who has a glint in his eye. It means he's trying to get into your panties. And I'm the only one who will be doing that from now on. Right?'
'Right,' Mara smiled and then remembered Mike.
'But this man I'm seeing, we're already-' she began.
'I don't want to hear about it,' Ruth said quickly, 'Just cut him off. Cut him off and don't let anyone make passes at you. This school will give you problems enough in that area, you don't need a stupid stud of a boyfriend complicating things too. Oh and be careful of Leonard. He's a sneaky type, he'll try to take advantage of you in every way he can. Even brutally.'
Ruth explained. Leonard was always offering female teachers or female students free rides. He managed to combine them with efforts to get sex and often succeeded.
'Last year he took a delightful girl, a big beautiful black senior, home. On the way he pretended he had car trouble just as they reached a heavily wooded area, far from a phone or much traffic.
'By the oddest of coincidences, he also had an unopened fifth of Scotch in his trunk. He offered the girl a drink, just to keep warm, as he put it. Well, the inevitable happened. After they had had three drinks and the girl was woozy, he made her have sex with him.'
Mara snorted. 'He'd better not try anything so idiotic with me or I'll use my fists on him.'
'Well Lucy wasn't able to cope with it. She told me the whole sordid tale later in my office and let me tell you it was ghastly. First he made her get into the back seat. It was dark by then. He took out his damned cock and made her swallow it. The girl told me it was so huge it made her gag when he rammed it into her mouth. He kept telling her she'd like it once she got used to it and when she refused to suck him, he just pumped away at her until he came in her mouth.'
'Oh no,' Mara said astonished. 'That must have been awful.'
'Not as awful as what came later,' Ruth retorted. He told her to take some more liquor to get rid of the taste and the silly girl complied. Well by that time she didn't know or care what would happen to her. So he forced her to lie on her stomach, lifted her leg over the back seat and… ' Ruth paused and shook her head. 'He ripped the poor girl's panties off and forced his damned cock into her anus. Can you imagine what that must have felt like to the poor girl. This big bastard pushing his rod into her. Not bothering to lubricate it even with his saliva.
'He just shoved it into her backside and she could hear him grunting like a wild buffalo as he got his stupid, selfish pleasure. When he finally came he lay back and fell asleep. She didn't get home till after midnight. After he forced her to have intercourse one more time.'
'Did she file a complaint against him?' Mara asked.
'She wanted to but he had warned her that he would accuse her of turning him on, of playing with his cock as they drove. And since she was no virgin and had been caught necking in the yard with one of the basketball players, she already had a history of fooling around. There were some things like that and also using foul language to a teacher in her personal file. Who would have believed her story? I told her to forget it and just be on her guard against him.'
Mara shivered inside as Ruth finished. She would have to be on her guard too, she realized. Against Leonard and Mills and maybe a lot of others.
She was not looking forward to next week's picnic. Nor to the prospect of telling Mike she could not go out with him any longer. Mike bothered her most. He had at fierce temper. She would have to come up with an excuse that at least let him save face.
Chapter 3
The picnic was being held in a beautiful wooded area in the foothills of some mountains close to Los Angeles. After an hour of easy driving over the speedy freeway, Mara arrived at a lake which was the most beautiful she had ever seen. Above the shoreline on one side was a thick forest which reminded her of the forests in Malaya. Mara loved it the moment she saw it.
She had come alone at Ruth Peter's insistence.
'We have to be careful not to start rumors about us,' Ruth explained. 'And I'm such a bad actor when I'm with someone I adore. They would see my eyes hungering for those gorgeous breasts of yours, they'd notice me staring at your lovely legs and hips when you walked around in your short shorts or swim suit. And they might easily realize,' Ruth laughed mischievously, 'that I want to rip the shorts off and nuzzle that delicious little cunt of yours.' Ruth's tongue flipped in and out of her mouth.
Mara laughed at Ruth's expression. She looked as if she were about to go down on her right then and there.
'And above all don't let me drink too much,' Ruth pleaded. 'I lose all sense of perspective of what I'm doing. And besides, it's such a long drive home. I don't want to wind up in a drunk tank downtown.'
'You mean people really get crocked on these picnics?' Mara smiled. 'I thought teachers were very formal, sedate types. At least that's how they were in Europe. Over there you have a Christmas eggnog drink with your fellow teachers or a New Year's Day drop in to say hello and you vanish' I never saw anybody get smashed there.'
