began and wondered whether she was available for extracurricular activities. Now that she was apparently beginning to warm up to Mr. Johanson of all people, Lionel’s vigorous and competitive libido began to send messages to his brain to make a move. The notion of losing the precious Miss Oliver to Mr. Johanson irritated the Vice Principal. And never more so than when he overheard them making plans to meet that evening for their date.
It seemed to Lionel that the only possible reason a girl like Miss Oliver would consent to date a fossil like Mr. Johanson was loneliness. Therefore he resolved not to waste another moment before inviting her out himself.
Lionel found an opportunity to speak with Miss Oliver during afternoon recess in the schoolyard. Pausing on his usual patrol around the yard he greeted her in a manner of unaccustomed friendliness.
“I hope I wasn’t too short with you this morning, Miss Oliver,” he said, with the energetic determination of a young man with sex on his mind. “About the ponytail, I mean.”
The wide-eyed first grade teacher looked back at him with amazement, noticing that he was actually trying to smile at her, though the effort seemed a painful one.
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Albrecht. I understand. No one likes getting hit in the eye. I should have held my ponytail while I was drinking at the fountain,” she readily conceded, with a charming smile.
“Say, Miss Oliver, do you like the theatre?”
“The theater? Oh, I adore it.”
“I have two tickets to West Side Story in Boston next week. Would you care to join me?”
“West Side Story?” she thrilled with excitement.
“Have you seen it?”
“No!”
“Will you come with me then?”
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, after only a slight twinge of guilty hesitation.
“After all,” thought Jessie, “Peter hasn’t even kissed me yet. You can’t really say we’re going out. And Mr. Albrecht can apparently behave quite nicely when he wants.” But then she remembered the way he treated the little boys and suddenly felt shocked at herself for accepting a date with him.
What would Peter think? Should she tell him? No, that would be awkward. But if she didn’t tell him and he found out later, he would wonder why she had concealed it. Jessie decided to be perfectly honest with Peter and confess to him, right after the movies tonight. After all, she doubted that Peter could resist an invitation to see West Side Story himself, so he would surely understand.
Peter had never seen Jessie in a merrier mood. Once they entered the theatre it was all he could do to pull her away from the lobby cards for Frontier Gal. He noticed her staring at one in particular, the one with the spanking of Yvonne de Carlo. This publicity still seemed to mesmerize Jessie. Suddenly she turned to meet his eyes and blushed.
“That looks like a such thrilling scene,” she explained, allowing herself to be lead away by the hand. Peter pondered this remark while House of Wax unfolded for them in 3-D. During the intermission they walked outside and Jessie smoked a cigarette. Peter bought her a lemonade and a paper of cotton candy for the next movie. The moon was up and dead leaves rattled through the windswept village street. “This weather makes me tingle,” she confessed.
“Something about the wind does stir the blood,” Peter agreed, encouraged by the open expression of her animal spirits. Her obvious fascination with the spanking photograph was not lost on Peter, who was a highly intuitive man. He had wondered why she had been so eager to see a western from the 40’s with no big stars. All week she could not hide her excitement at seeing this particular movie. Now he understood why. She was for some reason fixated on the spanking scene!
Jessie never removed her eyes from the screen during Frontier Gal and was rewarded with the unexpected spanking of the stubborn, six-year-old daughter by the handsome cowboy daddy halfway through the film.
“Wasn’t that darling?” she whispered to Peter at the conclusion, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with her handkerchief. Peter smiled at her and patted her tiny gloved hand.
“You’re darling,” he told her.
By the end of the film, watching her reactions and remembering certain snatches of conversations they had had, Peter was firmly convinced that Jessie had a spanking fetish. This pleased him no end, from both an erotic and a practical point of view. Faking an interest in the beat poets had him skating on thin ice, but when it came to a subject like spanking, he felt confident of delivering the goods. It was also heartening to realize that in spite of her liberated views, Jessie still entertained an old fashioned respect for the dominant male.
Peter took Jessie back to her apartment in a state of enchantment. When she invited him in for a bottle of wine, he did not demur but followed her immediately up to the third floor of the Victorian triple-decker house where she rented a sprawling apartment.
“Is a male visitor at this hour going to be a problem?”
“Goodness, no. My landlady is an artist with two lovers,” Jessie replied, letting them in.
Peter lit a fire while she brought in the wine and glasses.
“Let me see that,” he grabbed the bottle, read the label critically, then uncorked it and let it breathe.
“Is it okay?”
“Oh yes, excellent choice.”
“You’re just being polite.”
“If it gets you tipsy, I’m satisfied,” he candidly admitted.
“Oh, Peter, you certainly don’t have to get me tipsy to take advantage of me. Not you of all people.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, but I have a confession to make.”
“A confession?”
“Yes, Peter. I did something today of which I think you might disapprove and it’s been troubling me.”
“Oh?” Peter was mystified but very happy to learn that his approval mattered to Jessie. “Tell Peter, you’ll feel ever so much better,” he encouraged her.
So Jessie stammered out the news about her upcoming date in Boston with Mr. Albrecht. Peter had not seen this coming and felt momentarily shaken. Mr. Albrecht was younger, slicker, presumably more savvy, better dressed and earned more money than Peter. Moreover, Peter feared the vice principal’s ruthless masculinity and cruel Richard Widmark lips would touch a cord in the latent masochist which would make her his slave in record time. Except for the fact that at this particular moment, he and he alone knew the secret to her heart.
“Peter?” she asked at length, “Aren’t you going to say anything? Are you upset with me?”
“No, dear. Of course not,” said Peter kindly. “It’s not as though we have an understanding.”
“But, we might have an understanding some day,” she suggested, accepting a glass of wine.
“I’m sure you know that’s
