Wednesday

“I trust your pencils are all sharpened?” Ms. Chapman asked. She was seated on top of her desk with her hands clasped together, facing a group of twenty students. As she’d been for the past two days, her feet were bare, and this time they were swinging back and forth with leisure, her heels bumping into the mahogany of her desk.

Each child had three items on his or her desk: a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a rubber eraser. Ms. Chapman observed a few of her children as they fidgeted, but the class appeared ready. She nodded, and she unclasped her hands and reached across the desk to snatch the remote from beside her computer. Soon, the ActivBoard behind her flashed to display the quiz subject, the rules, and the time limit.

“You will have fifteen minutes. When I start the timer, the questions will appear on the board. You must answer them True or False, and if you answer False you must explain using full sentences why. Am I clear?”

The class made a casual murmur of agreement. Ms. Chapman looked out over the students, and she caught Megan, eyes trained on the instructor’s feet like a predator stalking her prey. Kim Lee looked so fixated she almost wondered if the girl was paying attention. And of course, little Stuart. All were in different places amongst the classroom, and yet all of them were focused on her feet.

Still though, they weren’t the only ones.

It wasn’t everyone. Of that Ms. Chapman could be sure. But there was a non-insignificant amount of students peppered around the class who seemed to be taking glances at the teacher’s swinging feet. Some were even taking long looks, drinking up their bareness as they hung in the air. Her wiggling toes, her slightly-dusty soles, her smooth and bulbous heel, her protruding ankle, each ministration of her foot seemed to alter the feel of the class ever so slightly, and Ms. Chapman was definitely jacked into it. Sitting on her desk wasn’t exactly new, but this combined with her new perpetual lack of footwear during class was an unlikely boon for a few students. In the rest, it gave rise to mystifying emotions that the kids didn’t fully understand.

Ms. Chapman herself didn’t know how to feel. She was confused, perplexed, heck, even gobsmacked by it all. And yet, there was something nice about being desired. She’d had luck with some of her other students right now, and luck was definitely something she needed when it came to training these kids, many of whom were located far below the center of the school’s bell curve when it came to grades. If she could perhaps entrance the entire class… use their infatuation as a tool… use her feet as the means by which she could control them… turn them into the perfect slav– students. The perfect students. That’s what she meant… the perfect…

Someone coughed. Apparently, Ms. Chapman had been in thought for a while. She shook her head meekly. “V-very well then. And just so you know, once I’ve graded them, I’ll have a special surprise for those who get an A. So do your best, and that might be you!”

She looked at her students again. There was another cough.

Ms. Chapman gave a nervous smile as she fiddled with the remote. “Anyway, begin!” And the timer started.

Ten questions appeared on the board. Ms. Chapman remained seated on the desk, her gaze high and mighty as she surveyed her domain. The three students who’d confided in her their secret desires took a moment to tear their eyes away from their teacher. They wanted her feet of course, and they knew they could have it and more. But they had to suffer through being away from them and focus here on the quiz. It was a series of questions about the literary works they’d analyzed over the past few weeks. Shakespeare, Harper Lee, William Golding, and a couple of short stories. It was a somewhat broad selection, but the questions were such that anyone who paid attention to the reading would be able to deduce the answers without too much trouble.

Indeed. It shouldn’t be hard. Yet the past three quizzes of a similar nature Ms. Chapman had given were Cs and Ds across the board without a vowel in sight. Ms. Chapman had been doing her best since then, but aside from Stuart she hadn’t seen much improvement at all.

Ms. Chapman let out a heavy sigh, then transitioned it into a short humming rhythm to keep the students from cluing into her burgeoning melancholy. She scooted off her makeshift throne and chagrined at the cold touch of the floor on her bare feet. They pattered as she returned to her desk and sat in her chair, waiting for the timer to run out.

“Seven minutes everyone,” she called. Pencils scraped over paper. Some students were erasing aggressively. Others appeared to have finished already. As always, Ms. Chapman could tell which students would do poorly and which who would do… slightly less poorly. More of the same, that’s always what happened. The life of an educator.

“Three minutes left…”

She propped her foot on her knee and dragged her manicured nails along the soles with just enough gentleness not to tickle. These were the feet that had been worshiped by her students twice in less than two days. What was it about them? Ms. Chapman was a woman who tried her best to be hygienic, clean, attractive, and set an example for her students. At the same time, she’d never dressed in a manner that was provocative or meant to titillate. Her younger co-workers and older students have described Ms. Chapman’s manner of dress as “librarian-core”, which was apt, of course, but for a woman who did on occasion want to be seen as sexy and attractive, it stung. Whatever her feet did to these kids, that was a result of her feet alone.

A cartoon bomb sound effect went off.

“Pencils down!”

All writing stopped. By that point, only a few were still working on the assignment. They hastily crossed their last Ts and Fs just in time for Ms. Chapman to leap from her seat and march to collect them herself, swiping them from the helpless students who had yet to check their work. Cursory glances at the top slices of quizzes showed there was little variation in the True or False answers, though she’d have to dig deeper in the short answers to have an idea of what the standard deviation of the quiz scores were.

Ms. Chapman slid into her desk, depriving a view of her feet from all except those closest to the front of her class. She chuckled grimly to herself, thinking, Yeah, right. As though these kids cared about her, and her feet less so.

But anyway. She set about the work of grading these papers, primed for disappointment. True (correct). True (correct). False… She skimmed the explanation and determined it was also correct. True (correct)…

…

…

***

Megan was used to being pulled aside from class and spoken to by the instructor one-on-one, usually in the wake of her pushing, punching, scratching, or biting another student (always provoked).

Stuart, in his own way, was no stranger to receiving special commendation from a teacher in a solo environment.

Neither would be offended if they heard the other say they never would’ve imagined seeing each other in this scenario they so often found themselves in. But when Ms. Chapman finished grading her papers, she sheepishly looked amongst the class and requested that Stuart and Megan (and also Kim Lee) wait outside the classroom for a few moments.

So, the three students looked at one another for as long as they could before averting their gazes to the floor and shuffling in place. Stuart was mostly baffled Megan hadn’t made a joke at the expense of his glasses or his hair. Kim was just happy to be included.

The door suddenly opened, and all three students stood at attention as Ms. Chapman slid out. Kim rose a brow as she observed her teacher’s face; she looked more nervous than she felt. Which was, perpetually, an above-average amount. Ms. Chapman pulled the door shut and leaned back against it as if to catch her breath. Stuart’s eyes seemed to glimmer as he noticed her feet were, as promised, still quite bare.

When nobody spoke, Megan decided on a far too conversational icebreaker, “So, what’s good?”

Ms. Chapman seemed not to notice or care for Megan’s lack of code switching. She let out a breath and stood up straight while flattening out some wrinkles from her blouse. “Yes, of course. Ah, well, children… it would seem I have a bit of a problem.”

Kim looked as though she’d been hit by an invisible bullet. Megan tried to act cool, but even she couldn’t hide the sullen glance that flashed over her expression. Stuart was the first to ask what his classmates were surely thinking. “So… we didn’t do so well on the quiz… I guess?”

Ms. Chapman looked truly baffled. It was almost scary. “What?”

After startling the kids, the echo bounced down the hall. Another teacher poked their head out of a far-off classroom. Ms. Chapman suddenly realized this was less than a private meeting space.

Ms. Chapman crouched slightly and said in a far lowered volume, “What?” The students seemed to take the hint, and they all stepped in a bit closer to her huddle. “No, quite the opposite. In fact… you three all made As.”

Kim and Stuart both lit up. Megan almost stumbled, and she shouted, “BITCH, I–”

Megan caught herself. The other three were staring at her.

Megan cleared her throat. “I-I meant… yeah. It’s all good.”

Ms. Chapman counted off five seconds to make sure nobody else tried to peek into their audience. “Well yes, but my problem is… so did everyone else. By which I mean, somehow the entire class received an A.”

Kim Lee went agape. Stuart raised an eyebrow. Megan gave her trademark glare, and she said, “Seriously?”

Ms. Chapman nodded. “Indeed. 90s and 95s across the board. Except for you three, that is, who all received perfect scores.” She winked, and all three kids blushed. “Now, my problem. I said beforehand that students who scored an A would receive a prize. I happened to have a few gifts kicking around in my desk drawer just in case…” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a wrinkled handful of individually-wrapped candies. After blowing off the dust bunnies, she brandished them to the group of three. “…but it appears I underestimated you kids! I barely have enough prizes to reward even a handful of students, much less the entire class!” Ms. Chapman gave a frustrated, fleshy stamp on the floor.

She waited for the students’ response. When it was not forthcoming, Ms. Chapman said, “Hello? You’re listening to me, right?”

Neither Stuart nor Kim Lee had been listening. Their attention had been pulled downward, which Ms. Chapman had frankly come to expect. Megan on the other hand looked at her teacher dumbfounded. “You’re… kidding, right? Your plan was to reward us with… Jolly Ranchers?”

Ms. Chapman chagrined. “Haven’t I already made it clear I don’t joke about these matters?! If you three can help me come up with some kind of reward for the class, I would be grateful. Something you know that your friends will like, but it has to be something I can provide on short notice. So, no pizza parties, ice cream socials, nothing like that.”

Megan looked at Ms. Chapman. Then she looked to Stuart and Kim, still quite hypnotized. She looked back to Ms. Chapman.

Megan shrugged. She grabbed Ms. Chapman’s hand and pulled her back into the classroom with much protest. “Ah, ach, Megan! Unhand me!” Stuart and Kim followed slavishly, not really caring about the circumstances of their return.

Megan shoved her teacher into the room before she closed and locked the door. Then she called out, “Alright everyone!”

The meandering conversation halted at once in the face of Megan’s authoritative yell. Just as planned. Megan grabbed Ms. Chapman’s arm again, and gently coaxed the flustered teacher to once again clamber upon her desk. She returned her attention to the class.

“So! It seems Ms. Chapman was so baffled by our performance in this latest quiz, she’s become speechless! Is that right, teach?”

Ms. Chapman: “Ah, well –”

“See!?” Megan interjected. “Totally stupe… stupef… confused. Because every single one of you got an A!”

This electrified the uninspired chitchat. Megan gave Ms. Chapman a quick wink before addressing the class again.

“That being said… I’m sure everyone in this classroom is excited to receive their prize…” Megan shot a look in Kim and Stuart’s direction. They stood their silently until Megan injected that look with the usual fear she imparted in those who spoke to her. That seemed to do the trick, and the two kids suddenly got to work behind Ms. Chapman’s desk, doing something she could not quite see out of her peripheral vision. Ms. Chapman was far more interested in what was going on in front of her anyway; Megan had crouched down, her hands traveling about the side of Ms. Chapman’s calf, her shin, lifting her left foot up by the ankle and brandishing it out for the rest of the class.

All talking ceased.

“You get what I’m saying here?” Megan whispered. Everyone heard her.

Up above, amongst the crowds. Boys and girls alike were greeted with a vision of Ms. Chapman’s foot. Her toes curled and opened; the draft chilled them, and the ensuing breeze carried the flavor of her feet back out amongst the students. The hardy scent of her feet was absorbed into each tween’s nose. Ms. Chapman truly was speechless… she could see in their eyes. Those closest to her feet in the frontmost rows, their eyes were already glassy, glazed over. Habib, Priti, Justin, Tanya, Omar… all of them were under a spell. It was at the back of the class that things were getting wonky. The kids seemed to be blinking, shaking their heads, slapping at their temples. They couldn’t understand what was going on, why they felt this way.

A blonde, pigtailed girl from the rear suddenly stood up. Gigi. “I, uh, have to go to the nurse’s office.”

Gigi clambered through the desks, racing, hunting for the door as quick as she could. But the closer she got, the closer she came to Ms. Chapman’s feet. Soon, she didn’t even realize she’d changed course. She was heading straight for Ms. Chapman’s sole, and she buried her face in it as though it were the last pond of water in the scorching desert. “Ahhhhhh…” Her moans and groans were muffled by her teacher’s thick, pillowy foot flesh.

Ms. Chapman was aghast. She scooted back, and her tailbone hit something hard. She turned, and here she realized exactly what it was Kim and Stuart were up to. They’d constructed a headrest out of spare textbooks from the front shelves, and they were just about to drape Ms. Chapman’s coat over it when the teacher bumped into the construction and very nearly toppled their hard work. Stuart had to grab the trembling tower with both arms to avoid catastrophe. Kim Lee shot her own mean glare in Ms. Chapman’s direction… she hadn’t even known Kim was capable of making such a face.

“Go ahead!” Megan continued her act and goaded Gigi on, tugging playfully at one of her pigtails. “This is your prize, you earned it!”

“I… earned this…!” Gigi huffed, planting kiss after kiss upon Ms. Chapman’s sole. Somehow, she was a better little worshipper than Kim Lee, but not quite as good as Megan or Stuart.

Ms. Chapman was still struggling to understand what was going on. But when Stuart and Kim Lee both took her shoulders, inviting her to lay her head back, she didn’t refuse. She scooched gently up the desk, putting almost her entire body upon the surface. Both feet were free to wiggle their toes, and Gigi had almost had her fill. Her face was wet with the remnants of Ms. Chapman’s own sweat, in addition to the moist smooches she gave to her teacher’s wondrous soles. Finally, as a finale, Gigi planted a loud, moaning kiss against the ball of Ms. Chapman’s foot.

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”

It seemed to keep going and going. Ms. Chapman wanted to look up and see what was happening, but Stuart and Kim Lee insisted she relax. Gigi continued her smooch. Her face was turning red, sweat droplets were running down her temple. Until…

“…mmmmmmmUAH!”

The kiss was complete. Gigi fell to the ground, her tiny torso rising and falling with the heartbeat of a squirrel.

Megan looked down at Gigi’s sleeping form. Then she looked up at the astounded class. “Well, looks like she enjoyed her reward. Raise your hand if you’re ready for your prize next.”

Every hand in the class went up.