Opening Up

Marlowe wanted the ceiling to fall on her. They were in too nice of a hotel, but she wanted it to collapse and crush her. Naked beneath the sheets, to be splattered like a bug was the only thing that would set the world right. James was married, and he did not tell her that he was married and they had sex. And when they had sex for a brief, fleeting moment, she thought her soul had left her body, and it was a positive thing. But he had a wife, and his kid was her student, and she felt like she had just done the stupidest thing of her life. She wanted the ceiling to leave everyone else okay and not even really, like, cost the hotel any money, but she wanted it to fucking crush her!

She heard a knock at her door. Time had gotten away from her. "Ms. Beausoleil? Are you up?" She had been for hours, but hearing Cameron's voice on the other side of the door was a most unwelcome alarm. She had on her makeup. She had showered. But even after that, when she was looking in the mirror and the crushing weight of what felt so immediately like a mistake that could very easily lose her her job and send her begging her parents to take her in so she could get off her feet yet again, Marlowe had to disappear beneath the sheets and be annihilated under the weight of something other than the memory of James.

His scent lingered in the blankets and pillows. To lay there was to allow that memory to wash over her. He found out that she was herself and he still wanted to fuck her anyway. And he insisted on calling her pretty and he was nice to her.

Really, the ceiling falling and crushing her was non-negotiable. How was she supposed to leave the bed and face her students?

Cameron rapped upon the door again and Marlowe forced herself out from under the sheets. She yelled, "Sorry! I had headphones in!" She started the day with another lie. Another thing she could feel guilty over and think herself a monster for doing. "I'm just finishing up getting dressed!"

"Mark and Aidan got into a fight, though," the little mouse on the other side of the door squeaked.

"Goddammit," Marlowe mumbled as she pulled her panties up over the swell of her ass, and the need to lock in and get her job done crystallized. "I'm just about ready! We'll get everything sorted and then figure out what's next."

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The students returned to order when they saw their teacher. In a burnt orange skirt with a white blouse tucked into it and a different cardigan over it, she commanded respect with sensible sneakers. As the students finished breakfast, Marlowe finished getting herself ready by putting her hair into a ponytail despite her struggle. Throughout the morning, she never saw James out of his room, even after speaking with his son. The time was coming for them to head to the conference. Although the agreement with the parent chaperone was that they did not need to join the student at the student's conference, Marlowe nonetheless worried given her stupidity the prior night.

"I'm gonna go check on Mr. Cavell!" she told her students as she walked toward the elevators. She paused and pointed at a boy with messy, sandy blonde hair, "Brayden, make sure your tie's done right! You're a national representative. You can't look sloppy!"

One of the Aidan said, "Yeah, Brayden," and tossed an empty plastic water bottle at his head.

"Aidan, you're already on thin ice! I'll return in about three minutes, and we'll get ready to walk to the conference. Please remember you are representing our school, you guys!" Marlowe stepped into the elevator and once again her stress crested, and she thought the tidal wave of it would sweep her and smash her against the elevator. The kids needed to do well, and they needed to be good. If they didn't, then this might be the worst weekend of all the weekends she'd ever experienced. They were already disorganized and high school boys were being dumb high school boys, Marlowe was about to see one of their fathers with whom she'd been stupid and had sex the prior night, and that was going to blow up on her, and someone was going to find out she was trans and she would get fired and, and, and, and...

Marlowe wanted the elevator to descend into hell. It would be less torture.

The shaft ascended to their floor. With a chime, the doors opened. The teacher had no control over her feet, but instead, with haste and purpose, they puppeted her. She wanted them to feel heavy. She wanted them to drag her down through the floor because they were made of lead, but instead, they pushed her forward until she stood before James' door. She wondered if this was what death felt like. If it were, it would be truly torturous for all of eternity. Nonetheless, she knocked on the door.

After a moment passed, Marlowe put her ear on the door to see if she could hear movement. She didn't think she did. Maybe, the brunette thought, the chaperone had already seen himself out and she would need to text him what was happening.

The handle moved and so did the door, before she got a chance to regain her bearings. James caught her shoulder as she stumbled and set her aright. He scanned behind her to make sure none of the students were evidently about. "You okay, beautiful?" James said, and the married man took the wind out of her sails to be upset. He rubbed her upper arm in an affectionate, paternalizing way that again brightened her cheeks red.

Seeing James' face reminded her why she wanted to fall for it the prior night. His sky-colored eyes were so inviting and warm. She could get lost in them. His beard made her desire to scrunch her fingers into it or let it tickle her body. Though he was certainly not dressed for a conference. In a henley and jeans, he looked like he was going to the bar with some friends.

"Sorry," her lips curled as she deferred her gaze from him. "I just wanted to check on you and make sure you knew me and the kids were about to leave for the conference."

James nodded. "You're sweet for checking in on me," he said, leaning against the door frame, and his hand went from her arm to the chin. "You should do it again tonight; let me know how they do."

The hallway light hit the silver wedding band on his finger and reflected it into Marlowe's dark eye. She winced seeing the ring. "You're going to go out today?" she asked, knowing the answer.

James nodded. "I was just about to head out myself. Good, I got to see your beautiful face before I go." James leaned down. He grabbed her chin and tilted it toward him before their lips met. Marlowe thought, just in the last moment, that she should stop it, but before she could turn her head, the deed was done. It was not a long kiss, but it was enough that her heart fluttered, and she forgot, for a moment, that the burly bearded man who, for the first time since she met him, didn't vaguely smell like his workshop. She let out a weak groan and bowed her head back down once he let it go.

"Well," James put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her away from the door, "we should both head out." He pulled it shut behind him and only then ensured he had his key card. In a single motion, he put his hand on the small of her back and ushered her back toward the elevator. And from that height, Marlowe finally descended back to earth.

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In the early autumn, Penn's campus was beautiful on the outside. With red bricks and yellow leaves, for being nestled so squarely against the city, Marlowe felt like she had gotten lost in a town built for a college. Under the canopy of trees and buildings that still evoked another time, Marlowe almost felt like she could forgive herself for who she thought she was in the last, god, it even eleven o'clock, twelve hours? The beauty of the campus was not enough to fully knock loose the thoughts, fears, and anxieties cropping into her. They had crawled into her like a spider and weaved a web in her gut, trapping everything she could imagine feeling inside.

Getting everyone onto campus and set up in the conference room was no easy task. Mark and Aidan continued to torment one another and though Marlowe believed they were being friendly, sometimes boys made it hard to tell. She tried to keep herself between them to prevent any fighting, but she felt like paper trying to prevent scissors from cutting through it. When they finally found their way to the conference room, she needed a second for herself and sent the students in before her.

No one followed Marlowe into the bathroom. She made her way to the sink and slumped in front of it. If she were a better teacher, she told herself, the students would be in line. If she were a better teacher, she would not have fucked one of their parents. "You'll get through this," Marlowe told her reflection. She retied her ponytail and left the bathroom.

As she prepared to enter, the teacher narrowly avoided being hit by the swiftly opening door. She shielded herself with her arm when a man came storming out, talking on his phone and covered in tattoos. "Hey!" She instinctively cried out. The man rolled his eyes and turned his back to her. He barely registered her. She knew she was an important thing in the world, but it always hurt.

Marlowe sighed. The day could only get better, or something.

Inside the conference room, the students found their way to their places. They put in every effort to make her day more difficult with Aidan and Mark continuing to torment one another. Other kids talked with some of their peers from Philly, Delaware, and New Jersey, as well as a school from nearby in Baltimore, Josiah Henson High, with whom many of her students fraternized.

Marlowe watched the students in their hierarchy. It was clear which students were fit for suits by a family tailor and the ones whose mothers took them to Kohl's to find something and never got it pressed before this, the first time it was worn. A few of the boys had collared shirts that still had folds in them from coming out of their packages. John Brown High was middling. A few of her students had nice things, though many of the kids didn't. One of the kids from Delaware had a suit that looked more expensive than anything she owned, but the Josiah students were starkly worse off than many of their peers. While in the conference room, they may have all been peer countries, but the Delaware student was representing America. That made sense.

Marlowe looked at the other adults in the room. The teacher from Josiah had left John Brown High before she got there, though she had yet to meet him. She wanted to talk to him and see if he had any insight on how she should navigate her relationships with the parents of her school, though she knew there were certain things not to discuss with him. She only saw a few others, none of them fit what she expected for someone who recently was a student teacher. Compared to the old woman whose hair had faded into a silvery blue who stood by the students from Camden, New Jersey, or the man with the push-broom mustache asking if his students needed "wooder," whose voice let them know he was local, Marlowe had a few decades of youth on them as someone who recently stopped student-teaching. She still greeted and met them to pass the time.

The door swung open again, and the tattooed man arrived from whatever more important phone call he had. Immediately, Cameron and a couple of the other John Brown students walked over to him and said their hellos. The rival teacher smiled down at his former students. He asked Cameron how she was doing and how their new teacher was. The kids smiled in a way they never did with Marlowe, and all looked happy to see him in a way that she found foreign. The girls giggled, and the reason why was clear. The tattooed man was stunning. With his white shirt sleeves pushed up, Marlowe found herself mesmerized by the art on his arms. The ink seemed to blend in with their incongruence. His tie was tossed over his shoulder, and she saw body art cropping up his neck. Though shaved on the sides, the rest of his dark hair was pulled into a small ponytail, save a blade of hair that loosed from the collective.

The teacher from Josiah locked eyes with Marlowe as she made her way over to him. From behind wire-framed round glasses, his dark eyes burned bright enough that they needed the fire alarm pulled on them. His tranquil face trained on Marlowe. "You must be my replacement," he said, inviting her in past Cameron and the other students.

The kids scattered back to their desks and watched the two teachers interact. Marlowe brushed her bangs from her eyes and looked at Ryan. "Uh, yeah. I'm Marlowe Beausoleil, though you can call me Marlowe," she smiled and extended her hand to him.

"Sorry, been dealing with some sickness at home; forgive me if I don't shake hands," he told Marlowe as she tepidly put her hand back down by her side. "But I'm Ryan Moon," he nodded back to her.

Marlowe's nose scrunched. Her hands were unsure what to do with themselves, so she fidgeted like one of her students in class. If only her students were still playing with those stupid spinners, it would have given her hands something to do. Instead, her fingers pressed and interlaced and broke apart with haphazard movements. She pulled on her skin and the vein on the back of her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Ryan."

"Nice to meet you too, Ms. Beausoleil," he nodded in return. His phone buzzed in his pocket. The mechanic held up a finger so close to her face that Marlowe could have bitten it off. He read something, and she could see a shift in his sharp cheekbones as if something happened trapped in that message that changed him. Marlowe folded her arms and looked aside like a chastened child.

"Sorry, you know how it is. Shit at home," Ryan told her. "I'll have to talk to you later; I gotta make a quick phone call before stuff happens here."

Ryan walked away from her. Marlowe's mouth fell open as she saw the space he'd emptied. Her cheeks gave away the small humiliation. Unsatisfied, she watched him go out into the hall. Cameron waved to Marlowe, giving her a sense of purpose rather than a reason to linger in the absence of a man whose shadow she already felt casting over her with how excited her students were to speak to him.

Throughout the rest of the day, Marlowe sat in the back of the room crocheting, reading, or checking her phone. She redownloaded Grindr but decided not to open it. She looked around the room to see if Ryan would ever return. Was it just because he was handsome that her students liked him more? As the students discussed policy and avoided embarrassing her, the day felt long and tiring. Her shoulders knotted so tight that Alexander the Great would need to cut them to open her up. All she had was time to stew on her mistakes and choices, and she could feel it beginning to warp her muscles and body under that anxiety.

The students enjoyed their first day with their peers. They would still be back the next day to wrap things up and head home during the late afternoon. Marlowe talked with some of the other teachers briefly, though most of them, like Ryan, went to do their own things until they came to gather their kids. Marlowe would spend the Sunday touring the city and going to museums, but she was too afraid to leave her students on their first day there.

As they were leaving the building, Marlowe heard a voice that drew her to look over her shoulder. "Heading off?" It was Ryan.

He walked over to her and opened his mouth to speak, but having been alone long enough with her students far enough ahead, the brunette's blood began to boil. In him, she saw every frustration she had with her students fighting and with James cheating on his wife. Did Marlowe care if it was on him? Not even a little. "Cool, grabbing me to say goodbye just before we leave?"

"The hell?" The tattooed teacher's head shook in visible confusion. "I had important shit to do; sorry I didn't talk to John Brown's newest student teacher. Jesus fucking Christ."

"I'm not a student teacher!" Marlowe immediately spat back.

Ryan rolled his eyes and folded his arms. With greens, blues, blacks, and red, the tapestry of ink was inscrutable without close attention. "What did I do? I literally came over to try and talk to you before you head out."

Marlowe's face turned red. "Well, you were rude to me earlier," she protested.

"I had to make a couple of phone calls and almost had to drive down home before they were done. What does it matter to you what I do with my time?" Ryan refused to calm down. His deep brown eyes gave him a wicked intensity.

Marlowe started to grind her teeth. "I--." She heard the footsteps of a student. The blood rushed from her face. The temperature dropped. They were one of Ryan's.

"Mr. Moon," the student interrupted, "Frankie found a taco place they think looked good; we were gonna go."

Ryan sighed. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up to his eyebrows. "Of course, Bray. I'm just finishing up saying goodbye to Ms. Beausoleil, and I'll be right there." The kid nodded and pivoted on their heel to walk away to give the adults their time to do whatever they were doing.

"Look," Ryan held up both hands, palms toward her, "I don't know why you're mad at me. I have to go feed my students, and I'm sure you have to do the same. I won't be around tomorrow that much, so I'll see you some other time, and maybe we'll be able to actually talk. If you let us."

Once again, Marlowe saw Ryan not as a person to connect with but as an absence in front of her. With the color in her cheeks, so too drained away anger. It all got trapped in the sticky web inside her. She rubbed her bangs against her forehead, mussing the CC cream she used for foundation. "Stupid," she called herself.

She walked to find her students. They wanted to visit the touristy-est food, and she knew how to get them to better stuff than they'd find at Pat's and Geno's and without their bullshit. They enjoyed the brief excursion to South Street.

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Still embarrassed, Marlowe shut the door behind her. The students were all back in their beds. They were abuzz from the day yet. All of them were full of cheesesteaks and the feeling of satisfaction. She separated the boys from fighting; she made sure they were all as happy and safe as she could. The day had been rough, and she knew if she got through checking on James she could crawl into her bed and bind herself into a tight ball beneath the covers. She knocked on his door. With three raps and no response, Marlowe thought it wouldn't be prudent to wait any longer. She heard no movement behind the hunk of hotel-grade wood and locking mechanism.

Tomorrow would be better, Marlowe told herself. She walked down the hall to her room. The elevator pinged, and, rising from the pit, James stumbled out of the car. He caught himself before he fell, and the idea of tomorrow vanished from the teacher's mind. She rushed in her sneakers over to James. She put her arms around him and said, "Easy there."

"Why if it isn't a fucking beautiful angel!" James exclaimed when he recognized Marlowe. He used her for ballast and touched her wherever his hands chose to roam. He leaned into her shoulder and sniffed her hair. "Good-smelling angel." She was on the second day since she washed her hair, but the gentle floral scents were locked in her follicles.

"Been out drinking?" she whispered. "I can imagine you're pretty tired at this point." Marlowe sighed. James rubbed his nose against her clavicle and rutted in the space between bone and sinew. "Let's get you back to your room, yeah?"

He conceded the point. The parent chaperone needed someone else to escort him back to his room. His feet clumsily tripped over one another, but Marlowe maintained a dogged determination to get James back to his room and bed. She espied the doors of her students in the desperate home; none of them would see Mark's father in such a state. She believed this would reflect worse on her ability to take care of a trip out of the suburbs of Baltimore than on the man who was nearly two decades older than her and drunk in a hotel where his son and his friends were.