Author's Note: All the people doing sexy things are well over 18. All the action is between teachers and staff.
---
It was a fresh start.
The suburbs were new to me. At least for anything more than a brief visit. I had previously lived downtown and worked at a small managed services firm. I was a senior engineer managing infrastructure for some big clients. Servers, switches, routers, and that sort of thing. What was nice was that I was paid handsomely. What was less nice was that I was always on the clock. Always working, always something that needed to be changed or fixed or updated, always stressed. We had what, at the time, I thought was a great benefit: unlimited paid time off. The reality was that I was so busy that I never used that time. Years working up the ranks, climbing the stupid ladder, and all for a bit more money that I couldn't even use because I never stopped working.
So I quit.
Shortly after, I bought my first car (city life and all that) and moved out to the burbs. My small apartment became a small house, and my mornings started with a nice jog I never could have taken before. There was a small part of me that sometimes missed the busy city life, but the rest of me was happy to be free of the absolute, soul-crushing burnout.
I was still in need of a job, so I searched for something a little quieter. That search landed me at Rita of Cascia Catholic School. It was one of a dozen schools running under the local diocese, which my heathen self learned was a term for a district of the Catholic Church. All of my responsibilities were local to the school and the attached church (that they all called a parish), and the school wasn't even that big. It only went from kindergarten to 8th grade, and each grade only had one class. I was their IT guy (and occasional maintenance assistant), and I was excited to start my new stress-free life!
Except, I would never have predicted what was to come next...
It was me. I was going to cum next. That's why you're here, shambling through this exposition.
---
A couple of weeks in, and I was already quite popular. The previous IT guy wasn't really an IT guy. He was just a member of the parish who volunteered his time. So having someone who actually knew the job made for plenty of happy teachers.
The first two or three months were to be dedicated to auditing and documenting everything. It took a lot of doing and a lot of digging. The firewall was a couple of major versions behind the current. There was no paperwork on support contracts. The phone system was installed by some IT company and then abandoned. Plus, there were two separate door control systems. They weren't even split between the school and the parish. One secured three doors in the parish and five doors in the school, and the other secured the remaining school doors. I have no clue how or why that happened.
So I had a lot of work ahead of me, and it was slow-going. Moreover, I also needed to keep the teachers and staff functioning smoothly while I shored things up. Most of them knew absolutely nothing about technology.
And yet, this work was exponentially more relaxing than my last job.
---
Spring was creeping into summer, and days were getting warmer. School was just about out for the year, which would give me more time to focus on getting their situation figured out.
On one of those days, I was beckoned for help by the Kindergarten teacher, Miss Walsh. "Hey, Paul? Could you come take a look at this smart board? I can't seem to get my screen to show up on it."
"Sure. No problem, Miss Walsh."
"Pleeease, just call me Amanda," she said, and she waved her hand dismissively as we walked to her room.
---
Miss Walsh was a few years younger than me and a few inches shorter. She wasn't a big woman. Clearly petite from what I could see, which wasn't much because of the dresses she always wore. Even as the weather got hotter, she was always in long sleeves. Her face was adorable, a bit mouse-y with a great big smile that shined like the sun. She was fantastic with the kids, too.
---
Her room was like kindergarten rooms everywhere. Plenty of colors. Numbers, letters, and pictures plastered on every wall. The room smelled a bit like crayon and paste. I sat down and started to punch away at the settings. "When did it stop working," I inquired.
"It's been kinda flaky all month. When it would quit working, I would just turn it off and on, and it would come back. But then it stopped doing that and just stayed off."
I tried a few settings on her computer and then a few on the smart board. They both looked like they were working, but they just couldn't see each other. I checked the HDMI cable on the back of the board, and that looked secure. So I climbed under the desk to check the cable there. Then I heard her say something. I couldn't prove she had said anything, but I swear I heard something like, "... I'd be getting a show too."
"What was that?" I asked.
"What was what?" she immediately responded.
"I thought I heard you say something."
"Nope," she said flatly, "didn't say a thing."
Huh, I thought to myself as I continued to dig around. "Here you go," I said as I crawled out from underneath. "I think this cable is bad. It looks like it's wearing away at the end. Lemme run back to my office, and I'll get a fresh one for you."
"Oh, perfect!" she exclaimed, her smile beaming.
A few minutes to my office and a few minutes back, and I was back under her desk plugging in the new cable. Again, I could have sworn I heard things. This time it was almost like someone was humming, or maybe... moaning. In a school, though?
Either way, I crawled back out and gave it a test. Everything came on just as expected. Miss Walsh was overjoyed, and she exclaimed, "Fantastic! Thank you, Paul. You're such a big help!"
"Ah, it's no problem, Mi-- Amanda. Just a simple cable swap."
"Sure, but I would have never figured that out."
"Well," I started on my way out the door, "feel free to holler if you need anything else."
"I'll be sure to do that," she beamed. And maybe she winked at me? I was pretty sure that's what I saw, but I brushed it off as my imagination.
---
A couple of days later, I was in my office taking apart a Chromebook. One of the students "accidentally" slammed it closed with a pen inside. I was pulling out the screen when a call came in on my desk phone. "IT," I answered.
Miss Walsh's voice came through: "Paul? Could you come take a look at something? I think one of the kids knocked something loose."
"Sure. Do you know what it was that was knocked?" I replied.
"Um... A router. I think," she sounded unsure, "Or maybe a smoke detector. I'm calling because I'm not sure."
"Ah. No problem," I said reassuringly, "I'll swing by with a ladder and take care of it either way."
"Wonderful!" I heard her smile over the phone. "I don't know what we'd do without you!"
I got over to the classroom with a ladder and a small toolkit I use to run cables and mount devices. On the device dangling from the ceiling, I could see the affixed label that told me this was "AP-7", a device called an access point that gave this room Wi-Fi. It was hanging on by the network cable, and it looked like the ceiling mount was torn out. It also looked like the person who installed it was lazy and only used one poorly placed screw to do it.
I sighed to myself, frustrated at others' refusal to do things right, and got the ladder stood up to do the work. "This shouldn't take long," I told her, "It looks fine. It just needs to be remounted."
"Okay. I'll hold the ladder... for safety," she said reassuringly as I started up the steps. The ceilings weren't very high. Maybe eight to ten feet. I just assumed she took safety very seriously.
At the top of the ladder, I inspected the AP carefully. Indeed, it didn't look damaged at all. The lights were even still blinking, like it was working. I unhooked the mounting bracket and pulled out the now useless screw. Using the bracket as a template, I marked a few spots with a pencil and drilled a few pilot holes. I then grabbed some fresh screws and my driver, and re-mounted the bracket to the ceiling. About ten or so minutes later, I was done, and the AP looked good as new. It would probably also better withstand rogue toys in the future.
"Well, Amanda, you should be good as new," I said while turning around.
Her face was flushed. The bottom of her dress was swaying... suspiciously. I didn't suspect she walked away, but I wasn't sure what she'd have been doing. Her face was getting redder as she said, "That looks wonderful!"
"It should also do a better job of surviving the kids, too," I told her on my way down.
"Oh, that's great. What would I do without you, Paul?"