I Think I Like It

It’s not even like he was new or anything. He’d been my English teacher for the last two years, and I never noticed a thing. I mean, yeah, he was a lot more chilled out than the other teachers, and had this way of shutting kids up that was terrifying, but that was the only exceptional thing I’d ever noticed – and everyone noticed that. Shit, he wasn’t even my favourite teacher, you know? He was just… a guy. A teacher. He was there. I went into his classroom bored, I left his classroom equally as bored, and that was the only interaction we ever had.

It’s funny, though, that in the two years of having him as a teacher, I never heard him read. I mean, yeah, he read out messages from other teachers, or short excerpts from books, but I mean that I never heard him actuallyread.

The school board decided, in our last year of doing English that we needed to focus on one text, instead of short extracts from a lot of texts. I couldn’t say I didn’t agree, but it did mean that we had to then spend the whole year reading To Kill A Mockingbird which, for the record, I’d already seen the film of, so was there much point of reading it? No.

Was there a point to watching Mr. Gaskarth read it? Definitely fucking yes.

I looked like shit that day. I remember, because I was in a bad mood because it’d been raining and I had just finished being splashed by a car that drove past me when I arrived in class. Mr. Gaskarth smiled a little at my dishevelled appearance.

“What’s the matter, Barakat? Couldn’t work out how to turn the shower off?” he smirked. I rolled my eyes.

“Fuck off, you prick.” I murmured, and then glanced up under my eyelashes to see if he’d heard. He had, but he said nothing, just raised his eyebrows and walked away.

“So, as you guys have heard, we have to study this little gem for the rest of the year.” He announced, waving his copy of the book around. The class groaned collectively, and he laughed, perching on the edge of his table.

“Yeah, I know. You guys sure love your tiny paragraphs. I think it’ll be good for you to actually read something substantial. You know, broaden your horizons and all of that sh-junk.” He said, flicking through the book absent-mindedly. A few girls giggled at his near use of profanity, and I rolled my eyes. All of the girls found him irresistible, and he knew it. He shot a ‘dazzling’ smile at them, and then continued prancing around the room like a jackass.

He pointed at one of the girls in his overly flamboyant way, and asked her to hand the books out. She unmistakably pulled her skirt a little higher as she ran to help him. He didn’t notice, though, instead he came over and knelt down next to me, his face soft.

“You okay, buddy?” he asked. I scoffed and looked away from him – even his face was making my blood boil. I was so not in the mood for nosy teachers right now.

“Yes. Fine.” I snapped. He laughed and looked down, his caramel hair falling into his eyes, and then looked up again.

“Okay, glad to see you’re well.” He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, before returning to the front of the class, and sending the disgruntled girl back to her seat.

“Seeing as the majority of you hate reading with a passion,” he said, raising an accusatory eyebrow at the class, who tittered nervously under his gaze. “I’ll read, and you just follow along in your books, and write notes where you see fit. Deal?”

The rest of the class mumbled its’ ascent, and Mr. Gaskarth perched himself once again on the edge of his desk, cleared his throat, and began to read.

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow…”

I stopped myself from gasping. His voice was so soft and smooth. The words glided off his tongue like water, and I couldn’t do anything but stare at him, open-mouthed. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he spoke, his tongue occasionally flitting out to wet his lips. As he spoke, his hand moved slowly up and down his thigh, an idiom that I recognised from Atticus’ character in the movie. Surely, then, he was familiar with the novel. I confess that I didn’t consider that too deeply, though, I was too busy watching the hypnotic movement of his hand, as he slid it across the soft fabric of his suit trousers. His fingers slid up, almost touching the constantly visible bulge in his trousers, then dropped, sliding back down to his knee. Each time, his hand seemed to be moving higher, and each time, I waited with bated breath for his fingers to even graze the spot for a second.

I didn’t have a big moment of ‘oh shit, I think my teacher is hot’ – I liked to think I was more mature than that. Instead, I let the feeling wash over me, and embraced it. It was nice, I thought, to be interested in someone – especially someone I couldn’t have. It’s not like I was in love with the guy – where was the harm?

He finished the chapter and placed the book down next to him, smiling softly at us, and I was sad to see him stop.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he teased. Everyone chuckled in response, and shoved their things into their bags. Somehow, I felt myself doing the same, though it felt like someone else was controlling my movements. Mr. Gaskarth took the rise in conversation to drift towards me, leaning on my desk. My eyes automatically – and inappropriately – flitted to his thick bulge, and I felt a knot in my stomach.

“Sorry to bug you, Jack. Just making sure you’re definitely okay. You seemed distracted.” He said, his eyebrows knitting together (holy shit, have his eyes always looked like that?) I smiled softly and nodded, clearing my throat to make sure my voice didn’t sound weak.

“Totally, I’m fine. Just tired. Y’know, I wanna get home and all that.” I shrugged. He put a hesitant hand on my shoulder, and my breath hitched.

“Okay… just let me know, alright? I know people can give you a hard time sometimes. Not to be awkward, of course.” He said with a giggle.

My heart swelled – he was adorable. I shook my head and reassured him, once again, that I was totally fine. He nodded and flitted off across the room to one of the girls who had, not at all subtly, pulled her shirt down to show more of her cleavage. I laughed and shook my head as I left the room. Who’d have thought that, after just an hour, I’d have a thing for Mr. Gaskarth?

Notes