Everything worked like a clock.
At five in the afternoon I have only five students. My selected targets. Their awkwardness reminds me of my own youth.
We are few, and an odd number. My assistant, Christina, is looking at us from the bleachers, her back straight. I asked her to take with her a sack with sporting clothes. She looks nervous even from here.
I move towards her, asking her to play with us. She takes her sunglasses off and reaches the changing room. Heels and nylons give way to tight pants, pumps and a top that leaves her navel free. Her long black hair tied in a ponytail, she reaches us complaining she does not know the game. The boys simply drool.
There is no game, just a continual sequence of blunders and fouls. I play against the gym teacher, youth against experience. Two stubborn men. The boys play another game; for them, anything that includes bumping Christina or falling over her is a goal. She tries to stay away from the ball, since every time she touches it the play resembles more rugby than soccer.
At the end I instruct Christina to shower. Long. I take the gym teacher away in my study, and after half hour I send him home. The school is desert. I walk back to the sport court. The boys' changing room is empty. Good boys.
They stagger back at my sight. Well, all of them except one who seems to have reverted to an animal state. I have to grab him and pull him outside of her. This displeases me, so I remark the fact breaking him a finger, then twisting it until he faints. It's not the pain or the fainting that they will remember, but the easiness with which I do that. I'm squatting a fly and they know it.
To their surprise, I let them go without a word, clumsily carrying their friends. Christina has spread a few tears but refuses to cry in front of me. I do not let her drive. I forbid her to speak, too. She knocks at my room later that evening. I send her away without a word, and I go to bed early.
Janus Research: for detective stories with a twist.
16 years ago

