October fifth was World Teachers’ Day! If you’ve read Masked Hearts, then you’ve seen my Dedication at the beginning:
To teachers everywhere who work hard for our children and deserve a little romance in their lives.
I was once a teacher and know how hard they work. As many hours as I put in, there were always others who put in even more. Please support teachers!
This is a clip from Masked Hearts that was inspired by something that actually happened to me in class. You just never know what kids will do.
But during story time at the end of the day, Sienna noticed Tyler bouncing pebbles that invariably ended up in the classroom. She hated to draw attention to him. All the other kids were ignoring him, so he wasn’t a distraction. She kept reading and asking the students questions about the story. After a few more pages, Tyler screamed. He yanked his nostril back, pointing at it and yelling more.
Sienna dropped the book and crouched next to him.
He poked his finger up his nose and yelled, “Oooowww!”
“Take your finger out of your nose and take a deep breath. What’s wrong?”
“Ahhhh!” He pulled a bloody finger out. “Ahhhh!”
She whipped her head around and asked Kelly, “Did you see what happened?” but Kelly shook her head.
Blood trickled out of a nostril as Tyler yanked it back with one hand and shoved a finger from the other hand up it.
“Sweetie, take your finger out.”
But Tyler kept it up there and continued screaming.
“I saw him stick a rock up his nose,” said a little girl, sitting next to him.
Sienna’s throat made an “erp” sound—caught between humor and horror. She gently pulled his finger out of his nose and pulled Tyler up by the wrist. She said to Kelly, “Could you finish the story and have them get their backpacks? I’ll take him to the nurse.” She stopped at the door and called back, “Oh, and remember to send home the notes about the new class.”
In her five years of teaching, she had never had a student shove a rock up his own nose. She couldn’t even fathom what the thought process was. Tyler kept screaming in the hallway until she told him, “School’s almost over. Your daddy will be here soon.”
At the nurse’s office, she explained what had happened. He was so squirmy that Sienna had to hold his arms down while the nurse used tweezers to pull the rock out. There wasn’t as much blood as Sienna thought there would be, but the level of disgusting was pretty high.
“Tell his mom to rinse it out with saline.”
Sienna nodded, cleaned him up and took his hand to walk him back to the classroom. Once the whimpering settled down, she said, “Why did you stick a rock up your nose?”
He didn’t answer right away. As they turned the corner to her classroom’s hallway, he said, “I just wanted to know what it felt like.”
She had no response. How would she ever explain this to Mark? Sorry, your son stuck a rock up his nose right in front of me, and I didn’t see.
Parents had gathered outside the classrooms to wait for their children. She glimpsed Mark staring through the window in her door. She dropped Tyler’s hand, the rock issue vanishing from her mind.
Oh, God, what had she done? She was insane to think she could separate everything out. She’d fucked a parent over the weekend, and all the other parents here were going to find out. She’d be the next headline: Teacher uses Parent as Sex Toy.
Be sure to buy Masked Hearts and find out if Sienna can handle sex with a hot millionaire parent and remaining professional at school. It’s on Sale for $1.00 at All Romance for the rest of October!
And for more information about World Teachers’ Day, check out this awesome graph at Grammarly!
Evelyn Aster 