The Photo Effect.

I’m freaking out, and I cannot decide what to wear. I’ve searched through my closet numerous times but if the top looks good than the bottom doesn’t. I’ve tried my shortest skirts to the tightest jeans. The pretty shirts to the layered ones. I even crept into my sisters room to see if there was anything in there that I could wear. But I soon realized that we did go to the same school and if she saw me wearing anything of hers, she’d have my head.

Finally after an hour, 11 o’clock at night, I was just going to wear my torn up looking skirt and a navy blue shirt with white designs on it. It was quaint and if nothing else, it was something that I wore so people wouldn’t assume that I was up to anything. Not that I really wanted to impress or follow Mr. Baker’s demands of wearing something nice, but I did want to ‘tease’ him at most.

Kael had missed school again, so I went to get Emily this morning. She looked really nice, too. She had on a light pink long sleeved shirt and some jeans. Her hair was straightened and down. The make-up clean, just like I taught her. She was slowly yet surely learning.

“Whoa,” she said once she opened my car door. “I didn’t know you had nice legs.”

I gave her a look of ‘just get in the fucking car.’ Well, I guess it wasn’t my other peers I needed to worry about. It was just Emily. Of course she asked why I looked so pretty today, so I reverberated with asking something along the lines of don’t I look pretty every day. She rolled her eyes and let me drive the rest of the way to school in peace. Except she turned the volume up about ten times higher than I’d have liked, but I didn’t complain because I joined her in dancing along.

While Em and I were walking to our lockers, she asked if I had brought my stuff for the night. I told her that I had it in my trunk. She smiled in a congratulatory way because I was normally never this prepared. I gave myself a pat on the back for myself as well. We begin to laugh about it.

“Good morning Ms. Hanson—Riley,” Mr. Baker says, while smiling.

“Hi Mr. Baker. Nice glasses,” Emily comments, pointing towards them in approval.

I am unable to say anything, so I look away which earns a hard elbow nudge from Emily. She whispers for me to say ‘hi’ or something but I just can’t. All I am thinking about is if he likes my outfit for the day. I hope he does because I don’t want to get into trouble. Wait, something’s very wrong with that sentence.

“Well thank-you Emily. See you in fourth period Ms. Cass,” He turns his smile into a smirk, but Emily being Emily doesn’t notice. I do, through my bang covered eyes.

After he is out of ear shot and sight, I get a slap to wake me up. “See you in fourth?” Emily mimics, tapping her foot, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

I chuckle nervously and shrug. “I switched classes.”

“Uh huh,” her stare remains daunting. “And um, when did this happen?”

“Yesterday, and why do you care?” I ask a little too rash.

She rolls her eyes and decides to leave it alone. Both us don’t really want to argue about something that is so pointless because her and I know who would end up winning. Me.

Throughout the day, she seems distant. I have no idea as to why she would be so upset, but when I ask her she keeps on walking to her fourth period. Groaning, I stomp my foot and head over to my new class, to Mr. Baker. I know it’s not his fault for saying that I was now in his class this morning but, I just wish Emily and I hadn’t seen him or something. She wasn’t jealous, that much I knew so what was it? I pulled my hair out of my hoodie, heaved my messenger bag over my shoulder and began my trek down the hall.

Since his sophomore class had only thirty students in it, we were able to stay in his classroom. Mr. Baker was standing by the white board, well he was kneeling down because he had the whole thing covered in his print. A little hard to read, but that was only due to it being small. I walked in, and went straight over to him, tapped him on the shoulder and waited a response.

“Aah, just in time.” He groaned as he stood.

Then he handed me the black Expo pen and told me to finish writing the rest of what was on the piece of paper he was holding on the back white board. They were instructions for a project. I smiled because I was glad Civics was easy, and that we didn’t have such tedious assignments. Every so often I would catch myself smiling when Mr. Baker would talk. It also made me grin when some of the students asked what I was doing in the classroom. He’d always give them ridiculous answers like ‘what do you think?’ or ‘she’s here because I said so.’

By the end of class, I was finished. Writing down Mr. Baker’s instructions had taken the whole time. I could seem to wipe the grimace off of my face as the students piled out of his classroom. I grabbed my messenger bag and was immediately pulled back just before my hand touched the door handle.

“Mm, and where do you think you’re going?” His fingers lace themselves with mine as he pulls me closer towards him.

I look at him. “Um, to lunch.” I say seriously.

He shakes his head, and lets go of one of my hands to wave a finger in my face. “Not today you’re not. Besides, don’t you want to spend time with me?” He whines, places his hands to the small of my back and presses me firmly to him, his forehead comes into contact with mine not too long afterwards.

I feel his hands trail lower, and I am surprised that I don’t stop him. It’s like I can’t, with those eyes looking right into me. He’s got me hypnotized. I let my messenger bag slip off my shoulder and land on the floor. The noise doesn’t even faze us, interrupt us. He bends his knees and presses his lips to my collarbone. I can feel his dry hands rake against the skin of my hamstrings and back up to my ass where he shoves his hands into the back pockets. Whoever needed back pockets for skirts, I now knew the answer.

Instincts make me tilt my head to the side. My hands are on the sides of his face, forcing his mouth harder to my flesh. I can’t explain why this feels so right, even when it’s very wrong. The way his warm tongue licks over my skin and how he grazes his teeth over it just gently enough to send vibrations throughout my entire body. Plus, his lip rings are like little massagers while he moves his mouth all over the place.

His hands grab a hold of my behind as they are still in my pockets, while he walks us over to his desk. He leans himself against it, and removes his hands only to grip my hips, hard. I can feel his thumbs lift the hem of my shirt slightly, and I almost whine when his hands come into contact with the skin on my stomach. Once under my shirt, he glides his rough hands on my sides and around to my back.

“Riley,” he breaths, taking his lips off of my collarbone area. “Your skin tastes so good.”

I feel my face burn, but I hide it by facing the opposite direction that he is. He slides his tongue up my neck and rests there for a second. Just before he leaves a mark, he decides to switch over to the other side of my collarbone. He completely avoids my lips, which makes me pout lightly. I want to know what it feels like to have his mouth on mine, to have his tongue dance with mine and to taste him too.

I hear a loud popping noise and Mr. Baker says softly, “Riley.”

“Huh?” I say almost indistinctly, for I am too captivated by the feeling of having his lower half pressed to mine, his hands rubbing all over my body and his hot mouth warming my skin.
He doesn’t answer. All he does is shove me to the closest desk and lay me down. But he doesn’t get on top of me or anything, he stares down at me though. His face holds hardly any emotion but that of a horny mans. I want to fuck you so badly. He then rests his hands on the middle of my thighs and as he goes higher, I can feel his thumbs press harder and harder into my skin.

When I sit up, I grab onto his shirt and pull him back down with me. I try to get him to kiss me, but he moves his lips away from me and stands up to back away.

“What’s wrong?” I say lowly and tuck some hair away.

He takes a few breaths before explaining. “I don’t kiss on the mouth, doll. It’s too intimate.”

I sigh loudly out of aggravation. Good timing that someone knocks on his door, so I hop off rapidly and compose myself. I walk over to the door, expecting to see another whore waiting for him but I almost fall backwards when I see that it is Emily. She doesn’t look to pleased, but at the same time she looks worried. She’s motherly sometimes.

“You aren’t eating today?” She asks so sweetly that I feel bad.

I turn to face Mr. Baker who’s just staring at us and say icily, “yeah sorry. I was stuck in this damn class.”

When I leave, I find myself laying my fingers over my collarbone area. It still tingles from Mr. Baker’s lips being on my body, and even though I am sort of upset at what he had said, I can’t help the slant smile that forms on my lips. But, why am I mad exactly? All he said was that he doesn’t like to kiss because it’s too personal. But if I do recall, he did kiss… the corner of my mouth. Damn! I clump my hands into my fists and pound them to my sides. He was good. And he was great at getting me all hyped up and leaving me empty handed.

I didn’t even pay attention in sixth period. Mr. Baker seemed to be in a pissed off mood, but I zoned off. When I did look at the overhead, I noticed that it was a page of notes that I had to catch up on. I glanced down at Em’s paper and hers was flipped over. Since she wrote hard, I could see the previous notes fade onto the back of the paper. I grumbled to myself. She was going to have to let me see them so I could copy.

“There is five minutes until class is over,” Mr. Baker spoke out to the class. “Please bring down your notes so I can assign initial that you were paying attention in class today.”

“Shit!” I seethed.

Emily looked over at me and laughed. We’d made up at lunch like we normally do. Then she whispered, “that sucks girlie.”

“I’m dead.” I whined and waited until everyone was out of the classroom, but I told Emily to just go and wait by my locker cause I didn’t want her to be around when I got yelled at. She shook her head and walked out by herself.

When I held out my paper, Mr. Baker looked down at it, then back at me and handed it back. “What’s this?”

“I um, I—“

“You weren’t paying attention, were you?” He folded his hands over his chest and watched.

I slumped my shoulders and shook my head like a five year old that was getting in trouble. “No.”

“Do I bore you that badly, Riley?”

I twirled my thumbs in circles. “No.”

He sighed, he sounded really irritated. “Very well. Next time I won’t give you credit because I know you’re better than this.” He waved the paper in front of my face. “Now, we do not need to meet up so enjoy your weekend.” He scribbled his initials and handed my paper back to me.

Every fiber of my being was numb. Thoughts, questions raced through my head. Why was he acting like this? Did I do something? Why didn’t we need to meet up this weekend? Was he mad at me from earlier? Was that going to change our relationship? And lastly, what in the hell possessed me to give him my cell number?

“Thanks Mr. Baker. It won’t happen again.” I apologized and tried to put on a smile, except it turned out to be real instead of fake.

“Off you go,” he placed his hand to my back and rubbed it before giving a light push. “I’ll talk to you later.” When I got to the top of the stairs, he was smiling. “Nice outfit,” he called with a wink.

Horror night is my favorite when I got to Emily’s. We cuddle on her big sofa, in the middle and eat Oreo’s, popcorn, and my favorite—Sour Patch Watermelon candy. None of the movies are actually ‘scary’ per say, but we still like to act all giddy because we are by ourselves. Plus, we reenact our own versions. One time, Emily went into the kitchen and I pretended to have a knife in my hands. She mocked a scream and we paraded around her house.

“Hey Riles,” she said just before we were to watch our first movie.

I turned to face her, totally hyper and awake. “Yeah?”

“I uh, I heard something today.”

Without trying to show much emotion, I nodded my head. Did she find out about Mr. Baker and I? “About?” I asked, now focusing on the TV.

“Well, I only heard Brianne talking about it so I don’t know if it’s true but, it’s about Julianne.” I felt her shift so all of her was facing me.

Now I was scared. Was my sister in trouble? All these questions, just get to it Emily. Shit. “Go on…”

“I heard she’s fooling around with a teacher. A teacher whom you and I both have.”

“Mr. Baker?” I shouted, snapping my head in her direction.

She shook her head ‘yes,’ before licking her lips nervously. No, there was no way this was true. It was surely gossip between her little clan of Barbie’s. Besides, Mr. Baker so wasn’t her type. He was rough and too rock and roll for her. She liked “Ken” men. No rhyme intended, but still. What was Julianne thinking? If she got caught—if I got caught, then what was I thinking?

“I’m sorry Riles, I didn’t mean to get you upset. I just thought—“

I lightly touched her shoulder and smiled. “It’s fine. I’ll—I’ll ask her, and no I won’t say it was you. I just have to figure out a way.” I said the last part mostly to myself.

Throughout our movie: Halloween, I debated on texting her. It was Friday night so she would be working, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get a text. I was focusing on the blinking cursor, when a new number popped up onto my screen.

Hey doll.

I anxiously looked over to make sure Emily was focused on the movie. She was completely engrossed. I didn’t know why I cared so much, but I did. So I texted back. Doll? Who the hell is this?

Zacky. Watch your language ;)

Um, sorry but I don’t know a Zacky. Wrong number.

Lol. Yes you do.

I replied, but got no response. Every minute or so I would check to see if this person had sent another message, but after ten minutes I gave up. Zacky. I didn’t even know a Zacky, or Zack, or Zachary for that matter. Or… did I?