Beouf rubbed her eyes and replaced her glasses. “Places like New Beginnings need to be shut down. They don’t care about the Littles there. They just want to make them into…into…”
“Dolls?” I offered.
“Yeah. That.” Her tone turned angry. “I have a Master’s in Early Childhood Education and a Bachelor’s in Child Psychology with a minor in Maturosis and Developmental and Emotional Plateaus. Some people just want me to be a torturer.“ She looked at me. “I love my students. I really do. They’re my babies, too.” The most painful part of it is she really believed it.
“Yeah,” I said. “That sucks about Taylor. I’m sorry.” That part wasn’t a lie at least. Just not for the reason she might’ve thought.
“Thanks,” Beouf said. She stood up. “Ready to get to tell me where to move stuff?”
“Yeah…” I copied her, and instantly regretted it. Something shifted around. I clenched my stomach and gritted my teeth.
“I know that look,” Beouf said. “Bathroom’s over there.” My eyes were still closed, but I knew where she was pointing. Internally I did the math. I could probably make it back to my own bathroom. Probably. Maybe. “Clark?” Maybe if the door into my room wasn’t closed and I didn’t have to stop “Clark? Can you hear me? Mr. Gibson?”
That did it. Cheeks clenched, I ran to the class bathroom, quietly praying that I’d make it. It was a close one. The kind where things were pretty much on their way out and plopping into the bowl before my ass had completely settled around the rim.
I seemed to exhale from both ends at the same time, opening my eyes only after the first tidal wave of cramps passed out of me. The fuck was that about?! You abstain from coffee for two and a half months and the first cup hits your gut like a jackhammer!
Tenuously, I opened my eyes and looked down at my boxers. Spotless. Good. No excuse. It’s not that I didn’t trust Beouf; it’s just that I only trusted her so far. She’d just seen a Little run off into her kiddie bathroom, and was bemoaning a missing student. Ten years had bought her the benefit of the doubt, from me.
“Clark?” she called. “Mr. Gibson?”
I turned my head to the side and felt my pulse quicken. I’d forgotten to close the door! Rookie mistake, Clark! Rookie mistake! The door opened outward too! It was so big that I’d have to step out to close it! It didn’t even open in a way that I could use it as a barrier. It was either waddle out with my pants around my ankles (a non-option) or finish, redress, and then close it; (pointless).
I was so…so…vulnerable. So incredibly vulnerable. If Forrest or Brollish- even Janet, I told myself- had caught me like this, they would have had ample cause to adopt me on the spot.
“Mr. Gibson?” My title and last name were something of a safeword. Beouf didn’t call the Littles in her class Mr. or Miss. All the same, I couldn’t help but clench up.
“I’m in here…” I said. “I’m fine.” That was a lie. This was not fine. But fake it till you make it.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll give you some privacy. Meet you in your room?”
“Sure.” I heard the heavy door to her classroom open and then close shut. Both ends of me sighed in relief. Ugh. I gave myself a courtesy flush.