PROLOGUE -- Huntsville, Alabama
NARRATOR: Marcus Marshall
NARRATOR: Marcus Marshall
I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I plunked down at my desk at the beginning of physics class. It had been maybe a full year since the A/C or heating worked in the school building. In Alabama, that meant that most of the year the students and teachers sweltered in humid, 80-90 degree classrooms.
This was a good metaphor for Shipley High School in Huntsville, I often thought -- a total meltdown. Near closure, Shipley was in complete disarray. There was virtually no funding left for anything. I hadn't seen a school administrator on campus in almost a year. The building was under constant construction and repair. Sports programs were closing down. Classrooms and hallways were ineffective, chaotic, and overstimulating.
Because of this, the only teachers the school could hold onto were young ones -- typically between ages 22 and 30. And boy were they glad to have them. The teachers here operated without any supervision whatsoever. They taught what they wanted, and did whatever they felt they needed to do to get their students across the finish line. Luckily for us, most of the teachers here have used this freedom to do the most they can for us. They really care for us, I think, even though the students here don't do a good job reciprocating sometimes.
Ms. Bishop, our 11th-grade Physics teacher, was no exception to this. She was on the more experienced side of the faculty at 27 years old. Students loved her. My female classmates loved that she was an intelligent, funny, and confident woman in the sciences. My male classmates appreciated this too, but also loved the sight of her. She was on the shorter side at just 5'3". Her blonde hair fell straight and clean down to right above her shoulders. She was a former Division 1 soccer star, a strong, muscled defender with powerful legs and a resultingly impressive backside. Her chest was equally impressive at least a DD cup-size, or so I overheard my classmates hypothesize one day.
I didn't ogle Ms. Bishop alongside my classmates. Not just because she was a close family friend -- a close former student of my mother's. I didn't get invited to participate in much of anything with my classmates. In fact, I'd go as far to say that they hated me. I don't know why. I keep to my studies, and to myself. I'm awkward, but I don't say anything creepy or off-putting -- at least I don't think. At the end of the day, I think it's just easy to pick on the nerd without many friends. I've long since given up on changing that timeless dichotomy.
Or rather, I had given up until today. It started off normally -- the frequent and small teasing from my peers, the insufferable heat. Physics class went by the same as well. We had begun a unit on leverage and torque, which I found fascinating. However, Ms. Bishop was losing the fight to keep her students interested today. You could see she was exasperated. She stood at the front of the class sweating in a red tank top with our school logo and a pair of dark blue shorts (dress code for teachers was a thing of the past since the A/C went out) failing to get any responses from anyone.
"Does this not seem important to y'all? What's going on today?" Ms. Bishop leaned back up onto her demonstration table at the front of the class, hopping up to sit on top of it.
"Why do we need to know this? None of us want to be engineers or scientists?" Tyler, perhaps my worst bully, shouted from the back of the class.
"It's a fair question, Ty, but physics can save your life if you pay attention what we're doing."
"Fat chance," Ty called back in defiance.
Unrattled, Ms. Bishop simply looked down and smiled from on top of the table. "I see. Well I think it's true."
She went on finishing the class swimming in the heat and apathy of the room. As the bell rang and students began filing out to go home, she stepped over near to my desk and asked me to wait.
"That was a doozy, huh kiddo?" Ms. Bishop asked smiling, hopping up onto the desk in front of mine. "Do you have a second?"
"Of course Ms. Bishop."
"Marcus outside of class you can call me Ashley, I've known you since you were 5. I'll even settle for Ms. Ashley."
"Sorry, Ms. Ashley," I replied weakly, smiling in embarrassment.
Ms. Bishop's face grew more serious. "Is everything going okay? How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," I lied.
"Okay. I just ask because I was paying particularly close attention to you and your classmates this past week. Marcus are they always that mean to you?"
"Yeah, but it's fine. I'm fine."
Ms. Bishop sighed, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. She nodded to herself before pushing off the desk and crouching down to my eye level. "I see..." she started softly. "Well...I need you to do me a favor, okay?"
"Okay...?" I muttered back shyly.
"I promised your mom I would look out for you here. I keep my promises -- especially to her. Plus, you're basically a nephew to me. So you don't have to say anything, but I know you are getting picked on. And I know it's mostly the popular kids, which makes it worse. So we're going to do something about that, okay? We just have to."
"PLEASE don't say anything to them, Ms. Bish-- err, I mean, Ms. Ashley. That will only make it worse."
"Oh I know how teenagers are. I won't say anything. But I have a plan. We're going to go the positive route." She smiled at me, leaning forward. "I think I know how to make you more popular to those boys. I have a plan."
"A plan?" I started to get an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
"A plan. Let's just say I've caught Tyler and his group looking at...a particular type of content on their phones during class. I think I know how to capitalize on it for you."
"What do you mean?" I grew more and more confused.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of it. Just do as I say tomorrow in class, okay? I'm going to call on you for some help. All you have to do is play along. Can you do that?"
"I can try." I responded weakly, nervous about what I was getting myself into. Ms. Bishop knew I was deathly afraid of being up in front of people, for obvious reasons.
"That's all I need from you. Get some good sleep tonight, and I'll see you in class tomorrow." Ms. Bishop patted me on the side of my arm and waved me out of the classroom as she began cleaning up.
I barely could hear Tyler and his cronies calling me names on the bus home over all the questions whirling around in my head.
This continued on through the next day of school all day until finally it was time to walk into Physics again. As was customary, we all found our seats, wiped the streaming sweat off of our faces, and tried to settle for another 90 minutes of sitting in the swampy classroom.
The only thing different about this afternoon was Ms. Bishop. Instead of shuffling around and getting the lesson organized as usual, she simply stood at the front of the room, leaning against her desk, with her arms folded across her chest. She was smiling, wearing a form-flattering sky blue sun dress with thin straps at her shoulders, along with pair of navy blue high heels. The neckline of her dress was modest, but failed to conceal the very top of her ample cleavage. Her blonde hair was in a tight ponytail. Every guy in the room was incapable of taking his eyes off of her, and I have to admit that this was true for me too.
"Alright everyone, settle down." Ms. Bishop hushed the quiet clamoring students and retreated behind her desk to begin fishing something out of a box by her chair. "Tyler, I was thinking about your question yesterday. I agree completely with you, I think. Not that physics is useless to you guys. But that we need to know what the stakes are for you all if we're going to appreciate the urgency of what physics can offer you." She continued rooting around the box, leaning forward, letting her chest droop down in front of the class. I thought I was going to hear a student pass out and smack the ground.
"So with that in mind..." Ms. Bishop stood back up behind her desk, placing three rolls of silver duct tape on the table, and smiled at me. "I'm going to need an assistant up here."
I felt my entire face go numb. As she turned to face me. Tyler's hand shot up into the air to volunteer, followed by nearly every other student in the class -- except mine.
"Marcus, I don't think we've employed your services much this year. Care to lend me a hand?"
I stood up, but didn't feel in control of my body. I felt myself slowly float up to the front of the classroom, stopping next to Ms. Bishop.
"Great. You take these." Ms. Bishop slid the rolls of tape over to me, before turning her attention back to the class. "The unit is on leverage and torque still, yes? Consider today a reset on yesterday's lesson. I have a question for you all. Why do you think knowing these concepts well could save your life?"
As the class murmured to themselves, fumbling for an answer, Ms. Bishop held her hands out to me, her wrists touching. The motion pushed her chest together, catching my attention briefly. "Tape me up!" She said quietly to me. I froze again. Smiling in fake frustration, she insisted, holding her wrists together and pushing them closer to me. "Hurry! Tape me up!"
I took a roll of duct tape and started slowly wrapping her wrists together, not very tightly, but not loose either. I looked up slightly at Tyler, whose jaw was practically on the floor.
Ms. Bishop turned her head to the class and continued talking while I worked. "Fine. I'll answer for you. Imagine someone has kidnapped you. Your life is on the line. You find yourself tied up in a closet or something with only a few minutes to escape." She turned back to me and nodded, signaling I had done enough. I ripped the roll from her wrists, and stood back. "Why would leverage and torque be useful to you then?"
"Because it could help you escape the tape!" One girl shouted from the front row.
"That's right!" Ms. Bishop lifted her bound wrists over her head, and in one move forcefully threw her hands downward, then apart from each other, splitting the tape in half like it was a piece of tissue paper. "It could save your life!" The class gasped at how quickly she was able to free herself. "Does that make sense?"
Ms. Bishop ripped the tape off of her wrists before turning back to me. "Let's try that again. Make it a little tighter this time!" I wrapped the tape much tighter around her wrists, pressing it down with my hands after ripping it from the roll. We watched in disbelief as our Physics teacher repeated her maneuver, breaking the tape without working hard at all. We repeated the exercise a few more times, as Ms. Bishop explained the role of momentum and fulcrums in leveraging the tape against itself. After a while, the class had fully comprehended the physics behind her escapes.
She nodded at me, winked, then waved me back to my seat. "Round of applause for Marcus, everyone!" A polite applause rippled across the desks. I made my way to my seat, feeling a few of my classmates clap me on the back in congratulations. I can't like -- I struggled to hold back a smile. Even Tyler offered me a fist-bump as I passed him by.
"Any questions about what we just saw before I send you off to do your individual assignments?" Ms. Bishop began placing the rolls of tape back in the box beside her desk.
"I have a question, Ms. Bishop." Tyler raised his hand. "That was a great lesson -- but I don't think that was super realistic. I'm not sure you would be able to use physics alone to escape if someone really tried to tape you up." The class broke out into a smattering of affirmations, hoping their sultry teacher would keep the exercise going.
"You're doubting me Tyler? And worst -- you're doubting PHYSICS? Ouch." She looked at the clock. "Maybe you're right, we need to get going on your individual work if you're going to complete it in time." The class broke out into a heavy wave of moans and sighs. The disappointment was palpable.
Without thinking, I raised my hand.
"Yes, Marcus?" Ms. Bishop looked at me curiously.
Not knowing what had come over me, I looked up from my desk and immediately felt the burning eyes of my classmates all over me. "I don't know, Ms. Bishop -- it could be fun to see you really test the limits of what leverage and torque can do. I bet it would even motivate us to get our work done faster..." The class broke out into genuine, enthusiastic applause at my comment. Even Tyler shot me a thumbs up.
Ms. Bishop looked surprised by my question. She looked around at the class cheering for me, then back to my face. "I see...motivation...right." Her eyes peered over to Tyler knowingly. "Well, Marcus, it seems like you have the people behind you. Let's see if we can come to an understanding. I'm not promising anything. Don't get your hopes up, everyone." She motioned to the door. "Marcus, why don't we confer in the hallway."
"Good luck dude!" someone shouted at me as I stood up and made my way to the hall. I nodded back confidently before closing the door behind me.
"I don't about this, Marcus. I really just had that one exercise in mind." Ms. Bishop folded her arms across her stomach and leaned her shoulder against the wall. "What are your thoughts?"
"I think it would be really fun. We could make it a type of competition?"
Ms. Bishop's eyebrow rose. "A competition? Ugh. You know how to get my attention. Fine. What's your plan?"
We re-entered the classroom a few minutes later to a completely silent group of students. They watched our every move as Ms. Bishop and I made our way to the front of the class. Without saying a word, Ms. Bishop grinned and pulled the rolls of tape back out of the box, placing them on the table. The class erupted into applause and cheering.
"Well, here is what your classmate Marcus has gotten me to agree to." Ms. Bishop stood with her hands on her hips as she addressed the energetic group of teenagers. "It's a competition. You all are going to start your assignments now." The class groaned demonstratively. "BUT!" Ms. Bishop interjected, "but...while you all begin. I'm going to go into the storage closet with Marcus and he's going to have a go at taping me up...properly." She glanced toward Tyler, who was practically drooling this his wide smile. "I will come out when he's done, and try to escape using my wide and precise understanding of torque and leverage. If I can get out before the bell rings, you all owe me a short essay on the subject of today's lesson. If I can't get out..." She grinned my way. "No homework for the next two days." The classroom broke out into more applause. Several of my classmates continued calling out my name and congratulating me.
Ms. Bishop walked over to the storage closet with the rolls of tape, stepping inside. "Alright everyone. Deal's off if you're not working on your assignments when we come out. Marcus, you ready?"
"One second Ms. Bishop!" Tyler called out hastily before leaving his seat and jogging up to me, holding his phone out. "Good luck dude. Make us proud. Some recommendations, if I may." On his phone was a woman completely imprisoned in tight tape. "I'll send this to you to use when you get in there. Give me your number." We exchanged numbers quickly before Tyler patted me on the back. "Pretty awesome." Ms. Bishop smiled and blushed at the sudden kindness Tyler had just shown me.
Safely inside the closet, the door closed behind me, Ms. Bishop handed me the rolls of tape. For the first time, she started to look a little nervous. Her cheeks flushed slightly as she looked up at me. At this close of a distance in the tiny closet, I had to actively try to avert my gaze from the top of her chest. "I don't know if this is a good idea. I may have bit off more than I can chew." She looked down nervously at the tape in my hands. "Do you...do you have a plan?"
I lifted up the picture Tyler had sent me on my phone. "Tyler sent me this. So I figured I'd try to just...do this?"
Ms. Bishop's face went white. "Good God, Marcus...That's...a lot." She paused and lifted her hand to her cheek. "And my mouth too? Really?"
"Really! It'll be fun." I began finding the end of the first roll of tape. "But it's okay if you don't want to anymore...I just thought it was cool how excited the class got."
Ms. Bishop sighed and hung her head. "Okay. Okay. We can do it. Just...don't let anyone do anything dumb when I'm taped up." With that, she turned around, placing her wrists behind her, dropping her head in defeat.
I emerged alone from the closet about five minutes later, leaving the door slightly ajar behind me. The class looked up from their work in tense, tight silence.
"They're all doing their work, Ms. Bishop. I think you can come out now."
Everyone's eyes turned toward the closet, barely breathing. Then there was a sudden burst of commotion -- applause, shouting, cheering -- as we saw our Physics teacher inch her way out of the closet. She moved in small hops, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. I had taped her ankles together very, very tightly, as well as the areas above and below her knees. The tape looked ready to burst against the tan, muscled tone of her legs beneath her sun dress. She twisted and turned after every hop to try and keep her balance, which was difficult, it seemed. Like Tyler's picture, I had taped her wrists behind her back perhaps even tighter than her ankles. I then taped her bound wrists to her waist, fixing them in place right above her impressive backside. I also wrapped several bands of tape above and below her heavy, heavy chest, forcing her breasts to push hard against the light fabric of her dress. Ms. Bishop was startled by this when I did it, which made me grateful I had wrapped her mouth and head several times with the tape before doing it. I was careful with how I gagged her, keeping the tape on her skin and below her ponytail, so it wouldn't get in her hair. Her cheeks bulged above and the silver material.
Our teacher finally reached the front of the classroom. She was already dripping in sweat. Her chest heaved up and down as she breathed in and out through her nose in deep pulls and pushes. The classroom stood up and applauded her one last time, which made her roll her eyes sarcastically before nodding her head. I turned and looked at Tyler, who was on his feet, enthusiastically pumping his fist in the air and smiling.
"So before we start," I shouted, settling everyone down. " Ms. Bishop insists that you guys keep working while she tries to escape. The deal is off if everyone doesn't turn in their assignment. Second, when the bell rings and she is still taped up like this..." I shot Ms. Bishop a wry smirk, prompting a mean, muffled response from my gagged teacher. "When she fails to get out, everyone has to go home. No after class show for y'all, I'm afraid."
"Hmmphhffhm." Ms. Bishop grunted into the gag and nodded her head at the class.
"Well then, Ms. Bishop, I think I speak for all of us when I say good luck! We're rooting for you!"
After another short wave of applause, Ms. Bishop sneered at everyone, furrowing her brow and grunting again into her taped lips. She began twisting and wrenching at the tape around her wrists, slumping side to side, rotating at her waist, bending down and back in an attempt to gain some leverage. We all furiously worked on our assignments, but failed to stay completely focused while our curvy, gorgeous teacher writhed and bulged underneath the tape that held her helpless. After ten minutes had gone by, Ms. Bishop had made virtually no progress, devolving into trying to hop up and down with her wrists on the corner of the table to tear or poke a hole in the tape. For the first time in my life, watching my Ms. Bishop hop up and down, her chest jiggling in front of us, I felt myself begin to lust over the woman who I had known since I was a child. I fell into a kind of trance watching her fight and sweat, I felt myself heat up every time she moaned or grunted in frustrated into her gag. Her face was growing beet-red. A few strands of her blonde hair were loose, sticking to the sweat on her face.
My trance was broken by the harsh sound of the school bell. Tyler's voice carried out across the room as we all got up to get our things. "No homework for two days! Let's gooo!!!" Everyone hooped and hollered and pat me on the back as they passed me on the way out, stealing a few glances at our defeated, exhausted Physics teacher bound and gagged at the front of the room. "
I looked over at Ms. Bishop as the last few students filed out. "You really gave it a great effort, Ms. Bishop. Are you ready to get out of all that?"
"MMHMMPHHHMHMPH..." Ms. Bishop turned to face me and emphatically nodded her head up and down. "Hmmphffmmhhhmp..."
"Okay. You've definitely earned it." I took a few steps toward my teacher, a small pit of guilt forming in my stomach as I examined how helpless she looked in front of me. Before I could begin undoing the tape on her wrists, I felt a hand grab my shoulder.
"Hang on there, man. Do you need a hand?" Tyler grinned and patted me on the back.
"Hey Tyler, I think I got it -- thanks." Ms. Bishop glared at Tyler suspiciously over her taped mouth.
"Okay -- fair enough. Good job today man, that was awesome. You really stepped up!" He turned and began walking toward the door. "If I were you though, I would maybe consider something. No one's here anymore. School's over. What's the rush in letting her go?"
"FFHFHFMMPHH!!!" Ms. Bishop hobbled forward toward me, shaking her head.
I turned to Tyler, who just a few hours earlier had the whole school bullying me mercilessly, and who now seemed to want to be my friend. "What did you have in mind?" I asked, grinning slightly.
