Mario and Luigi

 

Exposed

In Juliet Farrell’s fourteen-year-old mind, whoever invented math should be strapped to a chair and beaten with hammers. Trying to wrap her head around complicated algebra caused her to rip up her homework assignments and stab her textbook with a sharpened pencil. If not for the after school tutoring of her teacher Trent O’Neil, her head would have exploded like a suicide vest. Every day for thirty minutes, she would sit in his empty classroom and work frantically on homework assignments. Meanwhile, Mr. O’Neil would stand over her with a shit-eating grin on his face and promises of his undying support.

“Don’t forget what FOIL stands for: First, Outside, Inside, Last. You have to remember that when multiplying two polynomials together,” said Mr. O’Neil in his best jovial voice. Juliet had a smile on her face as well when her teacher’s advice was actually working. “Excellent work, Juliet! You’ve come a long way in such a short period of time. I like that! If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I have to use the men’s room. I’ll be right back to grade your assignment.”

It had been only a few short minutes since Mr. O’Neil left the room and Juliet was already confident enough to finish her assignment in record time. Another smile formed across her dimpled cheeks and she gave a silent, “Yes!” She hugged the piece of paper to her chest like it was a child’s baby doll. She then danced happily over to her teacher’s desk to lay down the assignment.

It was here that the brunette haired teen took a closer look at Trent’s desk and noticed something unusual. His drawers were usually locked, but one of them was slightly ajar. With furrowed brows of confusion, she opened one of the drawers just out of random curiosity. She had seen him confiscate contraband from other students before and lock them up in these drawers. Maybe there was a CD player in there. Maybe there was chewing gum. Or pot. Or a knife.

After shuffling around inside the drawer, Juliet’s eyes widened in horror and her cheeks were quivering. As she flipped through naked photos of herself one by one, her blood had chilled and cold sweat poured off of her face in streams. She even held her hand to her mouth and cried silently at the perverted nature of these nude photos of her. Obviously they were Photoshopped, but the sexual acts she was performing in these photos…they brought up bile in the back of her throat.

“What are you doing with those?” asked a falsely apologetic Trent O’Neil, who was standing in the doorway with a horrified look on his face.

“What am I doing with these?” sobbed Juliet. She repeated that sentence in a scream this time followed by, “You have naked pictures of me in your drawer! What is wrong with you! Is that the only reason why you wanted to tutor me?! Oh my god, I feel sick!” The traumatized teen dropped to her knees and dry heaved on the floor. Her face had turned bright red and mucous was forming around her nostrils as she sobbed some more.

“Juliet…you need to listen to me. I can explain why those photos are there. They’re not mine, I swear,” said Trent with his arms held out in a mediocre attempt to calm his student down.

“Bullshit!” shouted Juliet while rising to her feet. “That is such bullshit! You’re a pedophile! You’re a goddamn pedophile!” Her sentences were punctuated by shoving Trent backwards repeatedly. The teacher had successfully deceived the entire school into thinking he was a decent person. But with one slap across Juliet’s face, his true colors showed and they were blood red.

Trent continued his assault by grabbing Juliet’s brown hair and hauling her to her feet. “Who in the hell do you think you are, little girl?!” he said in an emotionless whisper. “Who are you to destroy my career?! I spent years teaching the next generation how to excel at math and become productive citizens. If you think you’re going to fuck it all up for me, you’re dead wrong!”

Juliet stomped on Trent’s feet repeatedly, causing him to do a painful dance, but he wouldn’t relinquish his grasp on his student’s hair. In fact, he had enough strength to shove her to the ground and lay on top of her. His powerful arms pinned her skinny wrists to the ground while the teen screamed and pleaded to be released. “Let me go! Please let me go!”

“You want to be released?! Huh?! You want to be released?! Oh trust me, little girl, I’ll give you the best release you’ve ever had in your entire life!” Trent’s breathing was heavy and labored, but also creepy to listen to. “Don’t believe everything your sex ed teacher tells you. You’re not going to have green splooge afterwards. But here’s the kicker, my darling: if you tell anybody about this, those nude photos go online! One way or another, you’re going to be known as a fourteen-year-old whore! Whether it’s mine or the internet’s is up to you, little girl! What do you say?!”

Juliet sobbed the entire time Mr. O’Neil was yelling at her. No matter the outcome of this confrontation, she was doomed forever. She thought of all the people who would either know about her rape or see her Photoshopped pictures online. All the name calling. All the physicality. All the isolation. The thoughts numbed out her mind like a shot of Novocain to the brain. Then again, as long as her life was going to be ruined…

“Eat shit and die, you pervert!” screamed Juliet Farrell before she leaned her head over and bit down hard on Trent’s wrist, drawing so much blood that it probably curdled while the teacher was screaming in mind-blowing pain. He rolled off of her and allowed the blubbering student to get up and run toward the desk where the stack of photos was being kept.

Juliet looked through those photos again with downward eyebrows and clinched teeth before looking back at Trent O’Neil, who was sitting on his ass screaming in agony and wrapping his orange tie around his wrist wound. Juliet then picked up a stapler along with the photos and marched over to her injured teacher with sick intentions on her mind.

“You want people to see me naked? Fine by me. But it’ll be on my terms. And the blood will be on your hands!” threatened Juliet. One by one, she stapled the naked pictures to Trent’s exposed skin and caused bigger gushers than the one on his wrist. The teacher screamed and pleaded, but instead got more pictures stapled to his arms, legs, chest, forehead, and lastly, his crotch.

Trent shot up off the ground and danced in pain while bleeding all over the desks and carpet. Juliet watched him twirl around with folded arms and a gorgon death stare as she followed him out into the hallway where the football team was just getting out of practice at the next door gym.

The football players’ eyes widened in horror at the sight of a bloodied pedophile with pictures of a naked teenager stapled to his body. Trent O’Neil had become a human collage of disgust, disdain, and violence and all he could do about it was crawl on his hands and knees with the football team’s hearts skipping a few beats.

“Go ahead. Soak it all in,” said Juliet, who was standing in a puddle of her math teacher’s blood. “Add those pictures to your personal spank bank. Jack off to them as much as you want. But if you’re thinking of keeping me like one of your slutty cheerleaders, just remember that you too could be just as bloody and bruised as the man who did this to me. So…how about it, boys? Do you have something you want to say to me? You want to whistle at me? You want to blow me a kiss? You want to ask me to the homecoming dance? If you’ve got something to say, say it to my motherfucking face!”

For extra emphasis on how brutal she can be when she’s crossed, Juliet held up the bloodstained stapler she used to make artwork out of her teacher. “You’re crazy! You’re fucking crazy!” yelled one of the football players as all of them started to back away slowly in trembling fear.

“You’re right. I am crazy. Crazy like a fox,” said Juliet with a sadistic smile on her face. She even licked the blood off of the stapler to make the football team backpedal just a little bit faster (they were moving too slowly for her tastes).

Youth of the Nation

***YOUTH OF THE NATION***

Even though some of the songs on my iTunes play list are considered “Christian rock”, I am by no means religious. But even with my proud atheist liberal stance, I can appreciate the message of POD’s “Youth of a Nation”. Instead of trying to push an agenda, the song is simply a mourning of all of the lives lost due to school shootings. In all of the debates going on politically, the one thing we always seem to forget is to care for one another and be the best neighbors we can be. Hugs and hair fuzzles can go a long way. Hell, it may even be the last time you get to do something like that for the ones you love. Show your love often and in huge volumes. People remember that sort of thing, so much so that they’ll take it to the grave with them when the time finally comes to die. Here are the lyrics to “Youth of a Nation”:

Last day of the rest of my life
I wish I would've known
Cause I didn't kiss my mama goodbye

I didn't tell her that I loved her and how much I care
Or thank my pops for all the talks
And all the wisdom he shared

Unaware, I just did what I always do
Everyday, the same routine
Before I skate off to school

But who knew that this day wasn't like the rest
Instead of taking a test
I took two to the chest

Call me blind, but I didn't see it coming
Everybody was running
But I couldn't hear nothing

Except gun blasts, it happened so fast
I don't really know this kid
Even though I sit by him in class

Maybe this kid was reaching out for love
Or maybe for a moment
He forgot who he was
Or maybe this kid just wanted to be hugged
Whatever it was
I know it's because

We are, We are, the youth of the nation

Little Suzy, she was only twelve
She was given the world
With every chance to excel

Hang with the boys and hear the stories they tell
She might act kind of proud
But no respect for herself

She finds love in all the wrong places
The same situations
Just different faces

Changed up her pace since her daddy left her
Too bad he never told her
She deserved much better

Johnny boy always played the fool
He broke all the rules
So you would think he was cool

He was never really one of the guys
No matter how hard he tried
Often thought of suicide

It's kind of hard when you ain't got no friends
He put his life to an end
They might remember him then

You cross the line and there's no turning back
Told the world how he felt
With the sound of a gat

We are, We are, the youth of the nation

Who's to blame for the lives that tragedies claim
No matter what you say
It don't take away the pain

That I feel inside, I'm tired of all the lies
Don't nobody know why
It's the blind leading the blind

I guess that's the way the story goes
Will it ever make sense
Somebody's got to know

There's got to be more to life than this
There's got to be more to everything
I thought exists

We are, We are, the youth of the nation

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

It’s a brand new week and a brand new prompt. This time we’ve got “Deception” and a story called “Exposed”, which goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

Trent O’Neil, Math Teacher

Juliet Farrell, Freshman Student

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Trent deceived the whole school into thinking he was a decent human being.

SYNOPSIS: In order to improve her math grade, Juliet has been spending extra time after school with Trent as her unofficial tutor. On the eve of a midterm test, Trent leaves the classroom to use the toilet and forgets to lock his desk drawers. Juliet goes to leave her extra credit assignment on the desk and gets suspicious when one of the drawers is ajar. She opens it and becomes horrified when she sees nude photos of herself neatly stacked inside. Trent comes back from his bathroom break and tries to “explain” how nude photos of Juliet ended up in his desk. The student tries to escape, but the teacher is blocking the only exit. It’s fight or flight for the little freshman and she hits hard.

***OCCUPY WRESTLING***

With the completion of Chapter Ten’s editing chores, I have officially crossed the halfway threshold of this novel. Ten more chapters and we’re ready to rock and roll. Ten more chapters. I can do ten more chapters. The eleventh one will probably get a complete overhaul since it’s the scene where Nina Jordan traces one of Keegan’s prison phone calls to an abandoned gas station. At least I think that’s the one, I’m not sure. If it is, then I’ll have to involve a large number of cops along with the ever-present Snakes of Jehovah. I can do this. I can goddamn do this.

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

DWAYNE PRIDE: Lay off the bee puns!

SONJA PERCY: Yeah, it’s not like this is a sting operation.

-NCIS: New Orleans-

***POST-SCRIPT***

Speaking of that TV show, John Oliver asked a very important question in one of his “Last Week Tonight” episodes: “How can there be that many dead navy sailors in New Orleans?!”