Page 1 of Painting Ghosts

Chapter 1

Huh. I’d never come across a couple in flagrante delicto before, but I guess there was a time and a place for everything. The one thing I hadn’t expected though, was to find them in the middle of it in my classroom, doing it on my desk. I’d never be able to bleach my eyeballs enough to get the sight of Simon Beechcraft’s bare arse giving it all to the red-headed woman squirming beneath him.

“Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell do you two think you’re doing?” It was an automatic reaction— I’d no doubt these two knew exactly what they were doing, and now, unfortunately, so did I.

“Oh fuck, Mr Sheridan, hells bells, this is so bad...” Simon’s somewhat panicked withdrawal was made worse by the fact that as he moved away, I got a full glimpse of what else was on display. I could only close my eyes hurriedly to preserve the girl’s modesty. I was sure Jean Brits wouldn’t have appreciated me ogling her inners and outers. Come to think of it, it was the first time I’d ever seen lady bits in person, and it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat. My tastes ran in a completely different direction.

Jean swiftly pulled down the long skirt that was currently puddled around her waist as she scrambled to sit up, her horror-filled face also reflecting embarrassment.

“Mr Sheridan, we’re so sorry, we thought you’d gone home already. God, we are so screwed, Si, this is such a fuck up.” She stood up, straightening all her clothing, and running a hand over mussed auburn hair. Her wide eyes stared at Simon, who was now fully dressed and looking at me like a wounded animal about to be devoured by a predator.

“Shit, Jeannie, don’t worry. I’m sure Mr S won’t tell our ‘rents, will you, Mr S?” His hopeful words stirred the amusement lurking beneath my diminishing sense of what the fuck.

Bloody seventeen-year-old libidos. Ah, I remember those days.

I cleared my throat. “Unfortunately for you two, I forgot my car keys.” I reached down to my desk, cringing as I did so, and picked up the bulbous set of keys lying on the edge. I dreaded to think where they’d been and resolved to pop into the washroom on my way out and sanitise the shit out of them, along with anything else I could. As I mentioned before, there wasn’t much I could do for my poor eyes.

The two teenagers huddled together like wet sheep in a paddock, staring at me pleadingly.

“Please don’t tell our parents, Mr Sheridan. Or the Head Teacher. We promise we’ll never do this again.” Jean’s voice quivered, and I could tell she was near to tears. Simon reached out and grabbed her hand, enfolding it in his large mitt.

“What she said. It was an impulsive thing, mind, we never done planned it.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Why choose my desk for your after school antics?” I took a deep breath. “And, seeing as how I’m the responsible adult here — were you using protection?”

Simon nodded vigorously, looking glad to be giving me the good news. “Oh yeah, of course. We’re responsible too, right?”

I shuddered, not wanting to know where the condom might be at this minute. “Right, well, go to the janitor closet and get some disinfectant and cloths. You can both clean up my desk and wipe everything down, so when I come in on Monday, there are no bloody surprises. Then you can go. And don’t ever do this to me again, or anyone else for that matter. Capsica?”

They both looked a little confused at that last word but nodded eagerly. “Sure, Mr Sheridan, we’ll do that right now. And thanks so much for not telling anyone.” Jeanie nudged her partner in crime. “Come on, Si, let’s go get the stuff and give Teach here a nice bright shiny classroom.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr S,” Simon echoed as he was dragged away. “You are the coolest teacher in college.”

The pair disappeared out the door, and I shook my head ruefully. Then I bent down to make sure there was no condom on the floor or in my wastepaper bin. There wasn’t. I guessed Simon must have taken it with him. I snorted in laughter at the absurdity of the situation.

If only they’d known this wasn’t the first time this particular desk had been subject to indecent behaviour. I had fond memories of the times an ex-boyfriend and I had banged each other senseless right here. Luther had been into that sort of thing, and back then, when I’d been less jaded with my love life, it had seemed like an exciting thing to do.

But it was my desk, and I was the only one allowed to commit any sort of debauched behaviour on it. I smirked as I walked down the corridor and into the bathroom to give my keys the rite of cleanliness.

My best friend Theo was going to fucking love this story.

****

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Tyler Sheridan, and I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m a lecturer at the Bridge worth Institute (a fancy-schmancy word for a college) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and have been for four years. My speciality is Marketing and Brand Development, with an emphasis on e-business.

I love the Institute, and I love living in Harrogate, where I’d been born and raised. My folks still live not far from me in Knaresborough. Yes, that town, the town of Mother Shipton with the scarily accurate prophecies and the spooky stone items hanging from the Petrifying Well outside the cave entrance. One of my old beanies still hangs from there, now turned to stone. It is pretty cool.

Now to tell you about Theo. Theo Daikon, a tempestuous, half Greek, hot as fuck artist and my best friend. We’d been buddies for over ten years, on and off. Theo had lived all over the world, creating his art, and we’d stayed in touch when he’d gone to Cypress to live three years ago, visiting each other off and on. Now he was back in the UK, had been for three months, and for selfish reasons, I hoped it was for good.

You may have already formed the impression that I am a little more into Theo than him simply being a friend. You’d be right. Unrequited love is a bitch. There’ve been times I thought he was as much into me as I was into him, but I never took the next step. Neither did he.

C’est la vie.

The college bell's strident ringing sounded, signalling the end of the day and the start of the weekend. Bliss. I sighed, bringing myself out of my reverie and throwing the wet rag into the waste-bin. My keys were as clean as they were going to get.

****

As I walked out of the school and over to the car park, trudging through the thickening snow on the ground, my phone rang. I plucked it out of my jacket pocket and grinned when I saw who it was.