“Thank you Susan. No, no. I’ll deal with it personally.”
Barbara returned the phone to its cradle, and leaned back in her chair. According to her secretary, one Jesse Cartier was apparently absent during class roll call. Student truancy, the bane of childhood educators, was a persistent problem throughout the school system. In this case, however, it provided Barbara with a rather fortuitous opportunity. You naughty little boy, she chuckled to herself, absently adjusting her glasses. Slipping out on the first day? My, what punishment I have in store for you.
Throwing her vibrating blackberry into the trash, Barbara rose from her seat and began to prepare for an extended leave of absence. Formally, she was just the vice principal of a high school. But her name revealed her true position – as a Jacobs, she had free reign over the building and everything in it. The rights earned by her grandmother were not mere platitudes. Cynthia Jacobs afforded her descendents certain inalienable privileges, which no one would dare question. Certainly no one in a backwater town like Lillooet. Although Barbara doubted her grandmother would approve of what she was about to do, she also knew that the Jacobs family had plenty of skeletons of its own. In the grand scheme of things, manipulating a boy into her possession was inconsequential.
Barbara adjusted her grey skirt and put on her matching blazer. Appearance was part and parcel of her success, adding to the reverence she experienced daily. Probably the youngest principal in the province, she was by far the most attractive. Unfortunately, her career and ambition had kept most men away – and certainly none knew of her well-guarded obsession with feet. Soon enough, however, a certain young boy was about to learn all that and more about Barbara Jacobs.
Collecting her briefcase and writing a short note to explain her disappearance, the 28-year-old vice principal carefully rehearsed a plan in her head. Barbara’s secretary had mentioned that a black-haired boy was spotted just outside of school property – a distance that afforded her just enough cover to avoid suspicion. It wasn’t clear what he was doing there, but Barbara could take a guess. Often, senior students dared the more naive and impressionable freshmen to leave the campus, usually for their own amusement. But it was a good sign for Barbara: Jesse would likely put up little resistance when she came for him. A timid boy would be quicker to accept her demands, and easier to force into submission.
Saying a farewell to her office and her life as Barbara Jacobs: Vice Principal, she made her way to the parking lot and her BMW. It would only be a few minutes until she reached him now, and her body was shivering with anticipation. Once the boy was in her possession, there would be no need for secrecy. No more hiding in plain sight as a well-respected educator of a high school. Jesse Cartier would be the first person to see Barbara as she truly was: aggressive, dominating, and obsessed with feet.
The drive was quick, and it was easy enough to spot the boy. Jesse had made it to the edge of a massive forest surrounding Cynthia Jacobs Secondary School. Even from the car, Barbara could sense the boy’s apprehension. He was wringing his hands, and pacing back and forth beneath an oak tree. The school itself was just out of sight, and there were no cars or pedestrians anywhere. “Perfect,” Barbara whispered, pulling her car to the side of the road. With a graceful movement, she opened the car door and walked towards Jesse.
His eyes, a distinctive blue even at a distance, widened as Barbara approached. She smiled widely, trying to avoid staring at his feet. “Mr. Cartier, I presume?” At an even 6’ in her heels, she had no doubt her figure was intimidating.
Jesse nodded slowly, his mouth quaking ever so slightly. “Y-yes?” He cowered away from the approaching principal.
Barbara sighed with a well-practised intonation. “It seems you and I need to have a discussion about truancy,” she said, gauging the boy’s reaction carefully. “My name is Ms. Jacobs, and you’re quite a distance away from my school. I want you to come into my car, and we’ll discuss how you’ll make it up to me.”
She studied his fearful eyes, and made a mental note. Potential.
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