“Ha, ha,” Boyd said. “It takes only one shot to hit your target.”
Fortunately, the waitress came over, and they stopped their game of insults. It took so long to get served and to eat that we had to rush to make the movie. I held them all back with my limping, but no one seemed to care if they made the movie in time or not. It was just something to do. In the theater, I ended up sitting between Kiera and Ricky. He smiled at me and let his hand drop over the seat arm so that it was against my thigh. During the movie, his fingers played with my miniskirt. I didn’t know what to do, but when he lifted it a little to touch my thigh, I jumped, and Kiera turned.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing much,” Ricky said. “That’s the problem.”
“The problem is, you don’t have any patience,” she told him.
“That’s Ricky,” Boyd said. He was on Kiera’s other side and leaned over her to talk to me. “PE Man,” he said, jerking his thumb toward Ricky.
“Shut your mouth,” Ricky told him.
Boyd laughed and sat back.
Ricky didn’t bother me for the remainder of the movie, which had some very funny scenes but was basically pretty stupid, I thought. I didn’t say so, because the others, including Kiera, seemed to think it was great. Later, after we parted to go home, I asked Kiera what Boyd meant when he called Ricky PE Man.
“He was just teasing him,” she said.
“I know, but I don’t know what that means.”
“It means premature ejaculation. You know what that is?”
“I think so,” I said. I wasn’t really sure.
“It’s when a boy, a man, gets excited too fast and the girl gets nothing out of it.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I can tell you for a fact that it isn’t true, so don’t worry about it.”
I looked at her. She knew for a fact?
She smiled. “Hey,” she said. “Don’t look so shocked. Relax. This is your first day of real class in the real school. Here, I’m the best teacher. And,” she added as we reached her car, “it’s tuition-free.”
She laughed, but something told me it wasn’t tuition-free.
Something told me there was a price to pay.
22
The Price
Mrs. Duval will be happy,” Kiera said as we drove through the opened gate just before eleven-fifteen.
“How will she know what time we arrived?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
Sure enough, when we parked and went into the house, Mrs. Duval was there to greet us. Kiera glanced at me and smiled.
“As you can see, Mrs. Duval, you didn’t have to worry. Both of us are still in one piece,” Kiera said.
Mrs. Duval said nothing. She watched us go up the stairs, Kiera giggling.
“Did you have a good time today?” she asked when we reached her suite.
“Yes, thank you.”