Sorodna Dusa

Seated at my kitchen table, I was attempting to explain a practical application of solid geometry to Kitty Vaughn, a high school junior who was one of my math students at Thayer High School. Like a number of her peers, she was floundering due to the teaching methods of Esther Hirschberg, the student teacher with whom Dr. Fiorelli had saddled me this semester. Given the uncomplimentary nickname "Miss Prissy" by the student body for her resemblance to the skinny spinster hen from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons and her classroom presence, Ms. Hirschberg lectured like Donald Duck but tested like Albert Einstein. The long-legged, very pretty Kitty was not the only student she'd sufficiently confused to beg me for private tutoring. I was making a nice bit of income on the side defogging the minds Miss Prissy bewildered.

"Kitty, the problem is simple. Remember what I taught you last year in plane geometry? When you have a problem you don't understand, break it down into smaller parts, solve the parts you do understand, then look at the problem again. Let's break it down. Do you remember the formula for the area of a circle?"

"A equals Pi times the radius squared, right?"

"Correct. And if you multiply that by length, what do you get?"

She was silent for a moment. "The volume of a cylinder?" she asked hesitantly.

"Exactly. Now, look at the problem again. It's one my grandfather the ship captain did all the time when he was running to the Philippines after World War II. Read it out loud. Draw what you see on your scratch paper; it might help you visualize it." She picked up her pencil and sketched as she read the problem aloud.

"You are the cargo officer of a freighter floating in salt water. You are to load mahogany logs at No. 4 Hatch. The logs are floating alongside. 20% of each log is above the surface.

"The logs are six feet in diameter and fifty feet long. The weight of seawater is 64 pounds per cubic foot.

"The cargo gear at the hatch consists of a yard-and-stay rig with a safe working load of 20 long tons, and a jumbo boom with a safe working load of 50 long tons. 1 long ton is 2,240 pounds or 1,000 kilograms.

"Required: can the logs be safely loaded using the ship's cargo gear? Justify your answer." She looked at me. I pointed to her sketch of a cylinder. She punched numbers into the calculator and got the volume of the log: 1,413.71 cubic feet.

"I know the volume, but how do I figure the weight?"

I drew a circle, divided it into 5 parts, and colored in 4 of them. I looked at her.

"The shaded part is how much is underwater." I looked at her significantly.

He face lit up. "So that's how much seawater it's displacing! That means the log weighs 80% of 1,413.71 times 64, or," she punched buttons, "72,382 pounds. Divided by 2,240 pounds, the log weighs... 32.31 long tons."

I looked at her again, raising an eyebrow. She reread the problem.

"The answer is Yes, but only if I use the jumbo boom?"

"Precisely. The problem only looks complicated. The only information you are not given is the formula for calculating the volume of the log, which you already know."

"Why can't Ms. Hirschberg explain it like that?" Kitty almost screamed.

"Because she's a fucking idiot!" I didn't say, though I certainly thought it. "She's still finding her feet as a teacher," I temporized. "She doesn't understand that students don't get theoretical problems half as well as practical ones."

Kitty got up and gathered her things. "Oh, I almost forgot, Mr. Fredericks. My mother wants to talk to you about continuing to tutor me."

"Have her call me," I said as I walked the elfin girl with the red-blonde hair to the door, handing her a card with my school and cellphone numbers on it.

"No, she wants to meet you in person. When would be a good time?"

"I'm at school until four o'clock most days and at home most evenings. Ask her to call me and we'll arrange something." I waved goodbye as she pulled out in her Boxster convertible.

My cell phone rang the next afternoon after school as I was going over the kids' homework after school with Miss Prissy. The fact many of the papers showed the same mistakes in each problem meant her classes were not grasping some elementary concepts. This in turn indicated to me that Prissy wasn't getting them across to the students. Something was going to have to be done to remedy that. I was trying to think how to upbraid her diplomatically when my phone buzzed.

"Excuse me," I said, walking into the hall to take the call.

"Hello?" A warm contralto voice answered me.

"Mr. Fredericks? This is Katryn Vaughn."

Although we had never spoken before, to me she needed no introduction. After I'd earned a battlefield commission in Operation Desert Storm with the Green Berets, my first independent command had been an A-Team with the peacekeepers in Bosnia during the Bosnian War. She had been a celebrity there, the first girl from "the cockpit of Europe" to make it as a high fashion model in many years. Katryn Pokoran had been a sensation in Paris, Milan, Vienna and London before making the jump across the pond to New York and Los Angeles. She'd successfully worked the runways and fashion magazines for three or four years. She was a popular mannequin in the design world, well regarded by those who covered the fashion industry and had been the favorite of one up-and-comer who was now a renowned, big name designer. She had then been wooed and wed by Drake Vaughn, a high-powered, well-connected Washington corporate lawyer. They'd had one child, Katherine, my student Kitty, before Drake dumped her in favor of a younger model in a pathetic attempt to prove his virility. Because of a pre-nup, although she wasn't poor by most people's standards she wasn't one of the idle rich either. She had moved to my town an hour from DC and worked in the offices of an animal-rescue charity as much to occupy her days as from conviction, according to supermarket magazines that followed the lives of celebrities.

"Kitty said you wanted to talk to me, Mrs. Vaughn."

"Katryn, please; and yes, I do."

I figured this was going to be the blame-the-tutor speech that grade-obsessed helicopter parents trot out when their precious offspring are still getting poor marks despite diligent tutoring. Preemptive strike time.

"Are you calling to terminate her lessons?" I asked brusquely.

"Not at all! What you're doing with Kitty seems to be working wonders. That's what I want to talk about. Could we meet for a coffee? I have a proposal I'd like to put to you. If today is convenient, when could you meet me at Colombia Supremo?"

"Would 5:00 be too late, Katryn?"

"That would be fine. How will I recognize you?"

I smiled. "I'll wear a carnation in my lapel."

"And I'll be carrying a large red leather shoulder purse," she laughed. "The challenge will be, 'Excuse me, is that a Louis Vuitton?' and the response will be, 'No, it's a Coach bag.' Will that do it?"

"John Le Carre has a great deal to answer for," I riposted. Her laughter was bell-like in my ear as she hung up.

Talking to Katryn had somehow focused me. I went back into the classroom. Tossing diplomacy aside, I reverted to my earlier incarnation as a Green Beret major. I gave Miss Prissy a thorough chewing-out over her stubbornly plowing ahead to cover the course material on her schedule whether the kids understood each concept or not. Her protests that she had gone over everything and they should have gotten it from one lesson fell on deaf ears.

"You'll go over it again, and again, and yet again until they do get it," I finished. "If they don't get the idea one way, try something else. You're lecturing as if they were grad students in advanced mathematics. They aren't. They're just high school kids.

"I've highlighted their homework to show you what they haven't understood. Go home tonight and give some serious thought to how you can explain those concepts so they see what you're trying to teach. I will not be happy if I have to take the class over and revisit topics you should have gotten across to them!" I stalked out, leaving Prissy looking as shocked as if I'd slapped her. I hoped the young Ms. Hirschberg had a fallback position as far as her career went. It was becoming clear to me she had no future as a teacher, at least not in high school math.

There was a small florist's shop a block south of the coffee shop. On a whim, I parked in front of it, went inside and purchased two red carnations. I had the clerk wrap one with a water tube in the base while I pinned the other through the buttonhole of my coat. Going to the café, I took a small table where I could see the door and waited for Katryn to arrive. She appeared a few minutes later.

By fashion designer standards, she was a grotesquely fat, disgusting pig with an ass the size of Manhattan and sloppy boobs that would hopelessly distort the lines of their runway creations. By the standards of the real world, the woman who walked through the door of Colombia Supremo was a tall, long limbed, deliciously slender size 4 with enough in the way of breasts, buttocks and nipped-in waist to make it clear she was a woman and not a sexless mannequin. The silk blouse and suede skirt combo Katryn was wearing hung beautifully on her, complementing the combination of pale white skin and flame red hair that hung to her shoulders. True to her word, she was wearing a red shoulder bag. I stood so she could see me. She walked to my table with a model's criss-cross step so ingrained after years on the runway as to be habitual.

"Excuse me, is that a Louis Vuitton?" I asked innocently.

"No, it's a Coach bag," she replied with a smile. "Alexander Fredericks, I presume?" I nodded and held out the carnation to her. Our fingers touched as she took it.

Sparks tingled through my body. Images flashed before my eyes of things I'd never seen and places I had never been: jump-cuts of a small town in Slovenia; a Western talent agent in a Mercedes; a spotlit runway surrounded by columnists and reporters with camera strobes flashing; an agent who was also a lover presenting me with a curious black and silver ring and a choker necklace; a carefully coiffed Drake Vaughn, first in a three piece suit, then waltzing with me in a white wedding dress; bursts of pain and the satisfaction of a baby suckling a breast; faceless lovers humping my pussy to their climax but not mine, coupled with a long, aching emptiness stretching off into what seemed to be infinity until just a moment ago, when a banked fire reignited.

My cock instantly sprang to full erection, startling me. Nothing like that flash had ever happened to me before. I saw Katryn's eyes flare with surprise and her lips part. They seemed suddenly fuller than they had been a moment before. That might have been an illusion; the sudden flush on her chest above the translucent silk of her blouse was not.

I eased around the table and seated her. Her eyebrows rose at this courtesy but she said nothing. We each needed a moment to gather ourselves. The waitress coming to take our order provided it. I ordered regular coffee with whole milk, not cream, and a shot of hazelnut syrup. Katryn held up two fingers to indicate she'd have the same. We looked at each other.

"I told you I had a proposal for you," she finally said. "It concerns Kitty. I'm worried about her."

"I can't imagine why," I said. "She's one of the steadiest students I've ever had the pleasure to teach. It takes her awhile sometimes to grasp a concept, but once she gets it she has it for good and all. I never have to review things she's already supposed to have learned half a dozen times before the information comes back to her forebrain.

"More to the point, she is a sensible girl who sees things as they are rather than through the rose-colored glasses of idealistic youth. I had to admit I was surprised to learn Kitty does not have a boyfriend according to her coach. She is concentrating on gymnastics, Ms. Ryan tells me, and her skills are improving steadily. As with her studies, she's a reliable performer who always comes through in the clutch. To me that is better than being an erratic superstar, someone you can't rely on to deliver in the crunch.

"That's why I was surprised to see her driving a Porsche. It seems too flashy for her personality. Something passed on to her when you bought a new car, perhaps?"

"Why would you say that?" she asked, wariness in her voice and expression.

"I know Katryn Pokoran's story. Meaning no offense, but I think you look better today than you did when you were strutting the runways in Milan and Paris. Your ex-husband is a fool, if you ask me. I certainly wouldn't have left you for another woman."

She blushed and took a sip of her coffee to cover her confusion. "Thank you, Alexander. But no, her father gave her that Porsche, not me. She told me she doesn't really like it, but as it was free...

"But I didn't ask you to meet me so we could talk about cars. I want to talk about Kitty's schoolwork, and not only her math class. I think she needs help."

"What do you mean?"

"I want Kitty to get the kind of education I don't have," she said, looking me in the face. "Money is not an issue. Her father must pay for college under the terms of the divorce.

"I'd like to get her into an Ivy League school or a really good university like George Washington, William & Mary, Duke or Auburn. A university where she would get an education that will let her do anything she wants to do, where she won't have to depend on her looks or on landing a rich husband. That's where I'd like you to come in.

"She responds better to you, to your no-nonsense style of teaching that demands she learn while respecting her efforts, than to any teacher she has ever had. I wouldn't mind studying under you either, to learn what I never got to know because I went off to work in the fashion industry. I think there is a great deal we both could learn from you.

"What do you say?"

I drained my coffee cup and tossed some money on the table. "I say we should discuss it over dinner, Katryn. There's a little hibachi steak house that also does sushi and tempura down the street. Would you care to join me?"

She smiled and tucked the carnation into her bag. "I would be delighted, sir."

At the restaurant, she again let me take the lead in ordering food. We watched the skilled hands of the chef transform innocuous pieces of meat and vegetables into small works of art, delightfully cooked and cunningly presented. As we ate, we agreed on the terms and on how to present the program to Kitty. It would require dedication on her part; I would require two to three hours a week of her time three evenings a week, plus occasional weekend trips to nearby exhibits and places of interest. We also agreed on an hourly rate and on Katryn's paying for any books and teaching materials I might need. She read me back the terms from the notes she had taken while we talked.

"Do we have a deal?" Katryn finally said. "I'll have a contract ready for our signatures tomorrow."

"My hand on it," I said. She offered me her hand and we shook, once again feeling sparks fizzing through the contact. She showed no sign of letting go and I wondered if she was seeing a montage similar to what I'd experienced back at the coffee shop. I looked at her tapering fingers with their manicured nails and saw the ring from my contact-vision. Katryn had not been wearing a ring in the coffee shop. She must have slipped it on when she took out her notepad and pen.

It was innocuous but symbolic. Three thin S-shaped silver bars forming a Y separated three pieces of onyx. Each piece of onyx had a small brilliant diamond inset into it. I'd seen rings like this before, but very seldom.

"I presume you are not wearing that ring simply because you like it," I said, caressing the back of her hand with my thumb.

"I do not wear it by chance," she said in a husky voice. "Do you know what it symbolizes, Al?"

"Yes," I agreed. "Are you sure that is what you want of me, Katryn?" She nodded, looking up at me from under her eyelashes.

"It is, sir."

"Prove it."

"What do you suggest, sir?" she asked, her head down, green eyes still looking up at me.

"Go to the ladies room. Take off your bra and put it in your purse. Unbutton your blouse as far as you dare, then undo one more button. Take off your panties and fold them up small. When you return to the table, tuck them into my coat pocket. After that, we can discuss what comes next."

"Yes, sir," she said softly. "I'm going to powder my nose. I'll be back in just a minute." She undulated to the rest room, her hips seesawing in a way that stimulated the imagination of every man who saw her. While she was gone, I ordered dessert, a simple mango sherbet.

When she returned, her blouse was unbuttoned almost to her navel. Her breasts bounced a little with each step, their rounded edges peeping out of the gap as she moved. Katryn slipped onto the seat beside me, our legs touching. She gave me a kiss that looked demure, but for an instant her tongue was halfway down my throat. I felt a bulge in my pocket that had not been there before, and reached inside to touch it. Moist silk greeted my fingertips. When I withdrew them and casually stroked my chin, the delectable scent of horny female was discernable. She rested her head on my shoulder and beneath the table my hand found its way under her skirt to rest on her bare thigh, caressing skin as soft as those panties; and, I discovered as my fingertips touched her vulva, as moist. She moaned softly into my ear as I teased her sex with my fingertips, parting her legs slightly.

Dessert was eaten in undue haste.

On leaving the restaurant, I took her by the hand and led her to my car. "We'll come back for yours later," I promised. "I presume that having a daughter, you'll not be able to stay with me for long."

"We have a couple of hours, sir," Katryn said as she buckled her seat belt. "Kitty has gymnastics practice. She always goes out for a bite with her teammates afterwards. She knows I sometimes have late meetings with potential donors and thinks nothing of it if I get in after she does. Where do you plan to take me?"

"To my place," I said, reaching inside her open blouse to caress her firm breasts with the hard nipples topping them. "We can be quite private there."

"Please hurry," she whispered.

We drove to my house on the outskirts of town. I could tell from Katryn's intake of breath that it wasn't what she'd expected.

During the craze for McMansion-size houses, a Victorian Gingerbread had come on the market following the death of its elderly spinster owner. It had been a grand old pile when it had been built 120 years ago but had fallen into disrepair. A house flipper had purchased it and begun its renovation. The project had gotten as far as knocking down some inside walls to combine small Victorian rooms into bigger modern rooms, opening up the walls and installing insulation, modern electric wiring, HVAC ducting and new copper plumbing when the housing bubble burst.

Unable to refinance or even to service his loan, the flipper walked away from a job on which he was underwater with no chance of surfacing. The bank had repossessed a gutted carcass in a badly depressed housing market, a drug on its books they couldn't sell. No one wanted a white elephant that wasn't habitable.

No one but me, that is.

I'd bought the place from the bank, paying cash, for about a tenth of its worth shortly after I'd come to teach at Thayer High and had continued the renovation on weekends and vacations. My primary MOS as a 25-Charlie radioman and my secondary MOS as an 18-Charlie Special Forces engineer sergeant before I'd been commissioned enabled me to move things forward, doing my own work at my own pace where most people would have needed to hire contractors. The fact I owned the place outright and could live on my teaching salary while spending my pension checks on the job didn't hurt either.