Selling the Drama (14 page)

Royce pulled Charlotte against him,
embracing her warmly. "Alright, pretty little lady, you know you
have to go home for the day. Principal's orders. Dad's orders are
to study. Don't waste the day just because you can't be here." He
looked at Toby, pointedly. "You'll come back after dropping her
home?"

Toby nodded. "Yeah, I have a test later." A
fair bit later though, so he was in no great hurry to return.

Royce nodded. "See you both, then." He
headed off to his own car with a wave over his shoulder.

Toby put his hand on Charlotte's back and
steered her up the path in the direction of the student car park.
The Principal had asked that Charlotte not attend school today. He
assured her it was for her benefit only and that Porter would not
be on the school grounds beyond this date. His concern was for the
slim chance of him running into her on his way out of the school.
It just seemed better all round, the Principal surmised, if
Charlotte was not put in the position of having to come face to
face with Porter right after her complaint and his suspension
having been made known to him. Her parents had agreed
wholeheartedly and then given Toby permission to leave school in
order to take Charlotte home.

"See, I told you it would all work out." He
put his hand on her leg, squeezing her thigh gently, running his
hand just a little bit higher, coming to rest just under her skirt.
He left it at that though; he needed to concentrate on driving.

Charlotte smiled at him. "You sure did. I
guess that means you just won your first case."

He looked at her with a grin, shifting
slightly in his seat. "I guess so. Not that there was ever any
doubt. I think we should celebrate."

Charlotte snorted with amusement. "You are
so full of yourself sometimes."

"It's called confidence, baby, and it leads
to success." He removed his hand from her leg then, placing it back
up onto the steering wheel.

She laughed outright at his statement.
"Whatever."

Charlotte got out of the car first when they
arrived home, heading up the stairs at a brisk pace, leaving the
front door open for Toby to follow her in. He locked the door
behind him, heading straight to her room where she was already
taking off her school uniform, clipping the skirt up onto its
hanger so it remained crease free for tomorrow. He waited in the
doorway as she unbuttoned her blouse, hanging it neatly also,
putting both back into her wardrobe.

Before she could get any ideas about putting
on other clothes, Toby crossed the room and put his arms around her
from behind, pulling her against him, putting one of his hands into
the front of her bra and the other down into her underpants. He
pressed himself against her and leaned into her ear.

"Do you know what winning makes me feel
like?"

She laughed lightly. "Pretty hard, I'd
say."

He began to work his hands over her, fingers
touching in all the right places. "It's a feeling of euphoria,
winning something like this, even when I was completely sure that
there would be no other outcome. I wonder what I'd feel like if I
won something that I didn't think was a sure thing." He licked her
neck, slowly running his tongue up to her ear.

"You do realise his career as a teacher will
be over now, don't you?"

"Yeah, that was the idea. He has no right to
a career as a teacher." There was no grey area for him. There was
wrong and there was right. End of story.

"Maybe, but that was his job. His career.
His whole life has changed now and it's because of something I've
said about him. I feel a bit, I don't know, empty." Charlotte
remained still in his hands, neither responding to, nor rejecting
his advances.

Toby thought for a moment, the feel of her
against him, filling his hands; he was not really in the mood for a
deep philosophical discussion about whether Porter deserved what he
got or not. There was nothing to discuss. He did deserve it, and as
far as Toby was concerned, he could sit and reap the rewards of his
behaviour in the leisure of all his spare time now. It really was
that simple. Justice, for Toby, was clear cut. People should not
get away without appropriate consequences for their actions. They
would just keep on doing it otherwise, perpetrating crimes against
unsuspecting victims, growing in confidence, and increasing their
brutality until the next thing you knew, they were up and snapping
the neck of the person who trusted them the most. Justice, was
essential to the running of society, and Toby felt a deep
connection to that concept. He was not going to dwell on it any
further than that.

"Charlotte, I want you to think of it this
way. By speaking out and changing his life, you've saved other
girls from having him change theirs." Toby waited as she
contemplated this.

"You're right. You're completely right. You
really are a brilliant lawyer in the making. I think you could
persuade anyone to think anything you wanted them to." Her voice
held a teasing tone, but he could tell she had taken some relief
from how he had just laid it all out for her.

"Do you think," he breathed into her ear,
"that I could persuade you to let me try something out on you?"

She melted against him, heat flooding his
fingers as they worked at her. "What are you going to do?"

"Take your underwear off and lie down." He
released her so he could take off his own clothes. When he returned
to the bed, he lay beside her, running his hand down her body, the
smoothness of her skin layered on top of his initial euphoria
inviting a boldness within him.

There were many things he and Charlotte did
together, the intensity of their experiences increasing as they
became more familiar with each other and lost their inhibitions.
Yet, a lot of it happened in the dark, late at night, and he did
not often get to see her naked in broad daylight, exposed to him
like this. He moved over her slowly, kissing her throat, working
his way down the centre of her body, a trail of kisses in a
straight line to the one place he had not yet had the confidence to
explore with his mouth yet. Which seemed a little unfair really,
because Charlotte was always making him lose control with her mouth
on him, sometimes at the most inopportune moments. The closer he
got, the more tense he felt her grow, the muscles in her stomach
contracting. Her hands threaded into his hair, gripping it lightly.
Spreading her legs further, he looked up at her, the expression on
her face telling him he was going to be happy with the answer to
the question he could not help himself but ask.

"Has anyone else ever done this to you?"
Shit he hoped not. There were some things he knew he could not
change about Charlotte, and having not been her first was one of
them. It was also something he had just had to suck up and get
over, and for the most part, it never bothered him anymore. But the
idea of being her first for other experiences was enough of an
enticement that it almost erased the other disappointment.

She shook her head, her hands tightening in
his hair. "No. Never," she whispered.

"Good. You need to let go of my hair so I
can move around."

She let go of his hair and let her arms fall
to her sides. He kissed her just inside her thigh, trailing his
tongue closer, taking note of the way she jumped beneath his hands
as his breath hit her. He looked at what was spread right in front
of him, a first time visual despite them having had sex countless
times and him sticking his hand down into her pants at every
opportunity. But this was different, having her laid out before him
in this manner, exposed, so trusting and giving. Possessed with a
feeling so strong it shallowed out his breathing, he felt as though
he were stepping over into something else entirely with her, a type
of intimacy that spoke volumes about the intensity of their
relationship. Toby could not imagine wanting to do this with anyone
other than Charlotte. And the thought of anyone else doing this to
her was abhorrent. He kissed her between her legs, using his tongue
to open her. He was not entirely sure about the mechanics of this
yet, but he thought he had a good chance of figuring it out as he
went along, picking up vital clues from Charlotte herself in the
process.

The feeling of her becoming undone beneath
his mouth was a sensation like nothing he could have imagined. The
power he held over her pleasure was like a shot of adrenalin to his
own, an orgasmic ride that he had not been prepared for. Charlotte
was trembling now, her hands clawing at the sheets beside her, an
unrecognisable sound emerging from deep within her, her legs unable
to remain still, and it was all he could do not to completely lose
control himself, the knowledge that he was bringing her this much
pleasure equally as euphoric as the act itself. Removing his mouth
from her, he reared up and drove himself down into the depth of
her, just about passing out at the feeling of her pulsating around
him, not thinking she would really mind this time that he had
barely lasted thirty seconds inside and forgotten to use a condom.
Again.

But fuck, what an incredible thirty seconds
it was.

Charlotte was overcome by a breathlessness
that was almost painful. Toby was still lying on top of her, a dead
weight as he tried to get his own breath back, but this was not the
source of her discomfort. This was one of those times, where
Charlotte felt that there were no words that she could say to him
to articulate the emotion within her, no actions she could make
that would demonstrate the depth of feeling she possessed for him.
She had never been under any illusions that sex and love were the
same thing. Indeed, she'd had enough sex with enough different
people to know that for sure. But Toby had blurred the lines on
that theory some time back, which was what happened, Charlotte
supposed, when you started to love someone who you were also having
sex with. The physical had meshed with the emotional. Up until this
moment, she would never have believed it possible for him to
demonstrate his love for her through sex. Recovering from the most
epic thing to have ever happened to her with the one person she
never wanted to be separated from in this lifetime, was all she
felt capable of in the moment. Words? What were they again?

Toby lifted his head to look down at her. "I
have to get up so I can get back to school." He leaned in, kissing
her softly on the corner of her mouth.

"I am so tired. I don't think I could move
even if I wanted to." Charlotte laughed quietly at his somewhat
devious smile. "You've completely fucked me over."

Toby flinched. He never liked to hear her
swear like that. She reached up and grabbed at his face, smiling at
him. "You're offended by my swearing yet you'll do all manner of
naughty things with me whenever my parents aren't looking?"

"Your vagina doesn't offend me but your
mouth could do with a bit of cleaning up. Anyway, it's not
necessarily the word that bothers me, it's the context you just
used it in. But yeah, point taken, I'm being a pansy arse. Yes, I
fucked you over and the fact you can't even walk now makes me feel
completely assured of my manhood. Imagine what you would feel like
if I'd gone for another four and a half minutes?"

Charlotte laughed out loud at him. "It
wasn't that short!"

He shook his head, his own face creased with
laughter. "Yes. It was."

"Well, I didn't notice."

He rested his forehead onto hers. "That does
not make me feel better."

Charlotte looked into his eyes, so close to
hers right now. "I wonder if that's what it feels like for you. If
so, I understand now why you like it so much."

"My work here is done," he teased back.
Charlotte punched him on the shoulder playfully. Toby kissed her
again. "Seriously, I need to get going. That was epic."

"Have you been sneaking my naughty books
again?"

"No. I don't need to read them to know what
to do. I was born this gifted." He rolled off her and stood up,
heading across to the bathroom. At the doorway he stopped, looking
over his shoulder back at her. "I love you."

Charlotte smiled at him. "I know you do." It
was a nice thought to fall asleep on.

Toby waited in the car for Jake who was
taking his sweet time getting from his last class out to the car
park. As he turned to reach into the back seat to pull out his math
book, thinking he might as well get a bit done while he waited, his
eye caught sight of an approaching figure. He rapidly stuck his
hand into his bag and rummaged around, relief flooding through him
as his fingers closed around the small tape recorder he kept there
for some of his lessons. He had always found it useful to listen
back over some subjects, it was a part of how he did so well with
his assignments, particularly essays. It was all too easy to miss
things while taking notes and you never remembered everything after
the fact, when you really needed to.

Pressing record, he slid it under the car
seat and sat back casually, keeping his gaze set on the front
windscreen. He affected a false sense of surprise when Porter
leaned into his car, one of his arms resting on the roof.

"Hey there, Toby. What's doing?"

Toby looked up at him, deliberately keeping
his face devoid of expression. "Not much." Porter was not supposed
to still be here. He should have been gone since this morning,
after his meeting with the Principal, which had been scheduled to
take place directly after their own had ended. Toby was not overly
surprised though, that he might have tried to approach Charlotte.
He was a scumbag after all, why change at the eleventh hour?

Porter stared down at him, silent, his
manner suggesting an attempt at intimidation, but Toby was not
buying it. Porter could try whatever he wanted on him, it was
unlikely to get him very far. Bullies did not intimidate him and
while he still avoided physical conflict wherever possible, he
would not hesitate to defend himself if it was initiated against
him. Besides, he highly doubted it would come to that, they were on
school property and Porter was a pussy. Anyone who went after young
girls in the slimy way that he did had to be. Porter was just
another version of his father, a man who took delight in the
suffering of women but who would crumble in a second against a
person who could actually fight back. As Toby let the silence
lengthen, he noticed Porter's unease set in. Exactly.