A Tantalizing Kiss

“Mason!” My sister called from outside of my bedroom door “Get your lazy ass up!”

I groaned, pushing my body up off the bed. Sunlight peaked into the room, proving that I
had once again slept through my alarm clock.

I walked over to the closet, running a hand through my hair. I grabbed a pair of jeans,
slipping them on over the boxers I had worn to sleep. I pulled on a belt, grabbing a t-shirt as I
walked out the door, not checking my appearance.

I loved being a guy.

“Hey” My sister, Joey, grunted from the kitchen. I pulled the shirt over my head, yawning.

“Hey.” I grabbed a bowl of cereal filling it up.

“You’d better hurry or you’re going to miss the bus again.” She said, not caring. The last
time I missed the bus, she called me in sick. That was how we rolled.

I shrugged, not caring “I’ll go when I go.”

“Caden’s coming over tonight, ok?” She said, not really caring for my approval of the
topic.

Caden was her boyfriend, as of this week. I had grown up with Caden all through-out my
life. My sister and he started dating when I was only a toddler. They had split up when
college rolled around for Caden. While they still met up on weekends so he could visit me,
they weren’t an official couple until three years ago, when my sister dropped out of med
school.

Caden had already completed college and was working a successful job as an
accountant. He met up with Joey and they started to date again.

The probably was, they constantly fought with each other. They could barely stand each
other for more than a days, deciding to ‘finally end things’ between them. Unfortunately, they
could barely stand to be separated from each other and within a few weeks were back
together.

Joey had tried dating other mean besides Caden, but it never ended well. She would
end up heartbroken and crawling back to Caden.

Caden would make a slight mistake with a girl. He wouldn’t realize it was a mistake,
because it was something Joey would tolerate most of the time, until it was too late. He
would beg Joey to take him back.

I figured they were a perfect couple for each other.

“That’s fine.” I said, cramming my cereal as quickly in my mouth as possible.

“Good.” Joey grabbed her cup of coffee, raising it to her lips. “Seriously, Mase, I’m not
driving you into school today. I have a job interview; I can’t miss it.”

I raised my eyebrows “Another interview already?”

She grinned, “I’ve got my connections.”

“Where is it?”

“I’m going to see if I can get a job as the receptionist at Dunder Mifflin.”

I frowned, “I thought you said you’d quit working there.”

“Where’d you get that from?” She frowned, “No, Mase, I got a second job as a hostess at
Applebee’s. I used to work in the mail room there, but I know the system like the back of my
hand. And Boss knows I do too.”

“Oh.”

“Get going, you can’t be late again! If you get another detention, it’s ISS. You get ISS,
you’re going to be grounded.” She threatened.

I rolled my eyes at her pathetic excuse for a threat. “Bye, Sis.”

“See you later, dork.” She smirked, sipping her coffee.

I grabbed my backpack off the living room floor, stuffing my notebook into it. Rent was
hard. Joey worked as a cashier at Wal-mart and a hostess at Applebee’s but the income
wasn’t enough. A few months ago I had taken up a job of my own at the McDonald’s near my
school. I kept all the money for myself, which meant Joey had more money to spend on
taxes and bills.

Caden helped out too, but he had his own house on the other side of town. He only ever
helped if he was dating Joey at the moment, though.

I walked down the stairs of the apartment we lived in, heading out to the bus stop at the
corner of the street.

I plugged the headphones into my ears, drowning out the sounds of the people
surrounding me. I had just barely arrived at the bus stop when the bus pulled around the
corner.

I let the younger kids get on before me as I usually did, the last one to board.

The bus doors closed and it pulled away from the curb, heading off to school.

~*~

School passed slowly. The teachers droned on about useless information. I didn’t pay
much attention to whatever they said. I already knew what I was going to do when I
graduated.

I was going to go into the army.

I kept my grades high enough in case something happened that I would need them, but
they weren’t college-worthy grades. Not that we could even afford college to begin with.

By the time the bell rang, I was about to shoot myself from the boredom. I stood up
quickly, slinging my bag over my shoulder as I quickly left the room.

Fuck Trigonometry.

I took my time heading to study hall, stopping to talk to a few people on the way to class.
I found one of my best friends, Leah, at her locker.

“Hey Leah.” I said, leaning against the locker to face her.

“Hey Mase.” She said, not looking at me. Her attention was focused on a small mirror

that she had clipped onto her locker. She was running a hand furiously through her hair, trying to fix it.

Leah was amazingly sexy. Her body had all the curves any boy could dream of. And of all
the junior girls I knew, she had the biggest, real tits. I’d known her all my life to know they
were real. I’d always been up for a nice fuck, but Leah refused saying she needed to be ‘in
love’ to fuck.

Surprisingly enough, she lost her virginity before I did.

I laughed, “You’re hair looks fine.”

“No it doesn’t! This stupid strand just won’t stay over!” She huffed. She closed her
locker, sighing.

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, “It looks fine-seriously. You still look as
amazing as always.”

Leah rolled her eyes “You have to stop with this.”

“Why?”

“Because Delran is going to flip shit if he knows you’re still hitting on me.”

Delran was her boyfriend. But that didn’t stop me from trying to get her in bed every once
in a while. The reason I liked Leah was because she went along with what I said, yet we
both knew it would never happen.

She was fun to mess around with.

“Screw Delran. You’re my bitch first.” I teased.

She rolled her eyes, “You tell him that. We’ll see how well that goes down. You know
how jealous he can get.”

I sighed, “You’re no fun anymore.”

She grinned, “It’s only for you, baby!”

I groaned.

Leah laughed, stopping in front of a door. “Alright, I’ll see you later, ok?”

“Yeah, yeah” I rolled my eyes, “See you Leah.”

She waved quickly, walking into the room. I sighed, making my way down the hallway
until I got to Drama class.

I opened the door just as the bell rang, getting a stern look from the teacher. I smiled
apologetically, taking a seat in the back row. Her eyes fell back on her paperwork as
everyone around me started to talk.

I dropped my bag onto the ground, talking to my friend, Rodger.

“Yo, man you going to Samantha’s party next weekend?” He asked.

I made a face. “Why would I? It’s not like she wants me there.”

Samantha had been my girlfriend all of freshman year. We broke up at the end due to
her father’s job being moved to Ohio. When August rolled around that year, I found out that
she had lied about her father’s job. I was furious at her for that and sent around pictures of
her to everyone I knew at school.

Inappropriate pictures.

She hasn’t forgiven me yet.

Rodger rolled his eyes, “Isn’t that the number one reason as to why you should go?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know man. She’s just going to bitch me out like last time.”

“You’re such a drag sometimes.” Rodger frowned.

I opened my mouth to respond when the classroom door opened.

It closed loudly as an unfamiliar girl strolled in. She walked up to the teacher’s desk,
dropping a yellow slip of paper onto it. Without waiting for an answer, she walked past the
room to the only empty seat left. It was on the opposite side of the room.

She took a seat, pulling earphones out of her ear.

The chatter stopped.

It was quiet for a few moments before our teacher cleared her throat, breaking the
silence. She stood up, walking to the front of the room. In her hand was the crumpled up
yellow slip of paper. She dropped it in the trash can on her way up.

“Good afternoon class.” Mrs. Stein said. “We’re beginning a new unit today. The
Shakespearian unit was a little disappointing considering you all have so many capabilities,
yet so many of you chose to push off the work until the last minute.”

She paced back in forth in front of the room as she spoke. “So I am raising the
expectation bar for this unit. I want a hundred and ten percent effort into this.”

I rolled my eyes, slumping forward on my desk. I rested my cheek on my hand lazily
staring off into space.

“We’re going to begin a new play, yet another classic.”

I internally groaned. Why had I signed up for Drama?

“What play are we doing, Mrs. S?” Rodger called out.

She narrowed her eyes on him, “Raise your hand, Mr. Parker. And my name is not ‘Mrs.
S’ isn’t Mrs. Stein. I’m not warning you again.”

He rolled his eyes, “Sorry Mrs. Stein, what play?”

“If you would be patient, I would get to it.” She snapped. “As I was saying. I want you all
to put effort into this. This will take up a third of your grade for this semester.”

“What play?” Another kid, James, called out.

“Quiet!” She snapped, “I will get to it!”

James’ face flushed.

“Anyways, students, we shall be working on the play ‘The Phantom of the Opera’.”

A chorus of groans filled the room. I noticed out of the corner of my eye how the new
girl’s body perked up at the name of the play.

“Now, I’m sure you are all aware that we have an afterschool Drama club here also.”
She continued, ignoring the negative feedback.

“Lame!” Someone called out.

“Next person to call out during this class gets detention!” Mrs. Stein hissed
threateningly. Everyone knew she wouldn’t actually give out detentions, but we all got the
message. “Now, I’m going to be offering an extra credit opportunity. Since we are in need of
actors and actresses, if you join the Drama club and perform in the play, I will be offering a
five percentage point grade raise.”

I raised an eyebrow. Considering the fact that I was currently failing this class, a five
percentage point raise would really be useful.

Caden would never let me live down the fact that I was in Drama club though…

“The club shall be doing the same play as we are studying now. You must attention all
rehearsals, and meetings, and you absolutely must be at the show with your best acting
skills.” She instructed. “There is a meeting tomorrow after school until 5 o’clock. If you want
to get the extra credit, then I suggest you attend.”

Rodger leaned across the aisle, whispering “Yeah right.” In my ear.

I smiled, rolling my eyes.

Mrs. Stein reached behind her desk into a box. She pulled out a stack of thin, paperback
books. She dropped a few on the front of each row, the students passing them back.

I grabbed a copy looking at the front cover.

The title was written in cursive, the first letters of every word more elaborate than the
others. The front was entirely black save for the white half of a mask, a rose lying next to it.
The script didn’t seem as thick as I had anticipated, but as I flipped through the pages, I
noticed how small the font was.

“For this play, we’re going to be doing this differently.” Mrs. Stein said once everyone had
a book. “We’re going to still have people acting this out, but this time I’m going to put you in
groups to act out a certain scene from the play. This will be a major project, so I wouldn’t
take this lightly.”

“Are we going to pick our groups?” Sarah asked, her hand raised slightly.

“No.” Mrs. Stein said, “The last time I let you do that, it didn’t go so well.”

I groaned, resting my forehead on the desk. There was absolutely no way I was going to
work with anyone I wanted to.

“For the rest of the period, I want you guys to read over the first scene. I want a two page
essay tomorrow on your first impression of what’s happening.”

Another chorus of groans filled the room.

“Don’t forget about the extra credit! I hope to see some of you at the meeting after school
tomorrow also.”

Rodger and I shared a look.

There was no way I was going to do that play.