ART CLASS
There are said to be many advantages of attending a mixed, boarding prep school. There are, however, several disadvantages. If one is the alpha male, the world lies at one’s feet in the senior year. Girls throw themselves at the alpha male and all the boys look up to him.
Problem: Louis was not an alpha male. He was cute and he had a very good physique for a twelve-year-old but he was modest and unassertive. It was always his downfall.
The end of school on Friday came and Louis was looking forward to an evening of x-box and just chilling with his mates. He left his last class (Latin was really not the best way to end the week) and made his way from the classroom block towards his dormitory. Daringly, he loosened his stupid striped green tie and wondered why, in the late twentieth century, boys such as he still had to wear those appalling, scratchy grey school shorts. They were embarrassing and, he considered, spoiled his chances with the girls. The fact that all the other boys were dressed identically didn’t seem to dawn on him.
As he made his way across the site, Melissa and her mate (there’s always a mate!) caught up with him.
“Hi, Louis, how’s it going?”
“Oh, you know.” Louis was not the world’s best flirter. Melissa was!
It didn’t take Melissa long (like less time than she took to invite him) to persuade Louis to come to her social area for coke and biscuits. At twelve years old and in the protective environment of a residential school, such seduction was irresistible.
Melissa made all the conversation while her friends passed through the lounge. Any boy going past the door to the dormitory would be committing a hanging offense but it was considered perfectly OK for girls to entertain boys and vice versa in the “public areas”. Several girls loitered and seemed to be appraising Louis; that did his under-developed ego no harm at all.
“Louis, what are you dong tonight?” When Melissa said “tonight”, Louis thought he was in there. “Tonight” only really meant, “This evening, before the Houseparents do a head-count” but Louis saw himself as Justin Bieber re-incarnated.
“Oh, you know, Babe, just hanging.” He’d never really got the hang of cool-speak.
“Well, how about coming back here after we’ve been fed and we’ll try to think of something to do?”
All his birthdays had come at once, Spurs had won the FA Cup, Ms. Suarez, his Latin teacher, had died of the plague and he was going out with the coolest girl in the school.
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What passed for an evening meal was served and the pupils were released, either to go home, to attend detentions or to do their own thing. Louis hadn’t even had time to change into his civvies before “dinner” and wanted to return to his new girlfriend as quickly as possible. He headed for St. Swithan’s House with almost unseemly haste.
“Hi, Babe.” Louis’s welcome was even better than he had expected as Melissa met him on the front step and kissed him in a rather chaste way, but Louis didn’t realise this and just thought of the prestige that being seen with Melissa would bring him. After he’d removed his shoes in the customary fashion, he sat on a sofa and conversed with Melissa and her two “best friends”. They laughed with him and made him feel really comfortable. Then he received the ultimatum.
“Babe, our art class has been cancelled tonight. The model couldn’t turn up. We need a substitute. We’ve decided that you’re it.”
Louis looked around him and saw the girls of St. Swithan’s house surrounding him. He’d gone from hero to zero in no time flat.
“No way!” He didn’t get any further before the girls had him face down on the floor and pinned underneath their overwhelming superiority of numbers.
“Alice, get one of his socks off.”
“Done!” Shortly afterwards the long, grey stocking with the uniform green stripe round the top was knotted and tied into his unsuspecting mouth.
The girls had planned well; before long Louis had his ankles tied together and his wrists. The girls were quite surprised by how closely they were able to draw his elbows towards one another. Such admiration for his suppleness didn’t impress Louis one bit. By now, even he’d realised he’d been suckered.
He looked pleadingly towards Melissa who smiled at him and told him, “Won’t be long now.” The girls then carried the helpless boy to the deserted art room and dumped him on the central table. They spent the next couple of minutes setting up their easels.
“Now Babe, if you’ll just sit up, please.” For a reckless minute Louis refused. “Sorry girls, do you think you can get our model to change his mind?”
Alice and Samantha quickly scrunched the boy up and tied a rope between his neck and the rope round his ankles. Then they sat him up.
“Well done, Babe,” said Melissa, “now look this way.”
“Uuuuu ooo.”
“Now that’s not nice. How do you want the whole school to know that you were owned by a girl? You know how Alice can manipulate photographs if you insist. I promise that we won’t show your face if you cooperate. Now look this way please, Babe, we need to be able to show the pose.”
Louis had to sit looking towards Melissa for over an hour without any hope of his look being returned with the same ardour.
When the girls were finished, Louis was glad that they hadn’t decided that it should have been a life class.
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John, Farewell,
The circle turns and we'll meet again.
Good passage to the next world.