#which Jonathan is the teacher in charge of it

[emily-mooon]

Nothing to see here, just a 1960s Jancy sketch.

[beardedmrbean]

The Arkansas teacher who was once surprised on national television by her adoring students has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for having sex with a 17-year-old student up to 30 times — including during a class trip to Washington, DC.

Married mother Heather Hare, 33, was ordered last week to serve 13 years in the federal sexual assault case, along with 20 years to be served concurrently, in a Saline County Circuit Court sexual assault case, KATV reported.

Hare taught home economics at Bryant High School, where she met the victim during his senior year and gave him her phone number, Instagram and Snapchat.

“At one point, Ms. Hare told J.R. that she had a dream of them having sex,” White said.

Hare engaged in sexual activities with the victim between 20 and 30 times throughout the 2021-2022 school year in several locations including her home, her car, classroom, and the high school’s parking lots.

Hare and the victim also engaged in sexual activity during an April 2022 school trip to Washington, DC, that she was chaperoning.

“J.R. advised they planned to have sex on the trip and not have to worry about being caught,” White said. “Hare did come to his hotel room and the two engaged in sex.”

Hare, who was arrested in April 2023, pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this year to one count of interstate/foreign travel for prostitution/sexual activity by coercion and one count of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

She also pleaded guilty in Saline County Circuit Court to two charges of sexual assault in the first degree, both related to sexual activity with a Bryant High School student.

“Teachers who have sex with their minor students should take note of today’s sentence for Ms. Hare which reflects the consequences of abusing her position of trust and taking advantage of the vulnerability of this minor to repeatedly engage in unlawful sexual activity,” US Attorney Jonathan Ross said during her sentencing.

The judge also sentenced Hare to serve a lifetime of supervised release.

[macrolit]

Forbes article: "How Struggling College Bookstores Found A Way To Beat Amazon"

Oct 20, 2023,06:30am EDT

A new sales model adopted by hundreds of universities limits students’ ability to shop around for textbooks.

By Lauren Debter, Forbes Staff

As fall semester dawned at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, senior Olivia McFall turned to Amazon to shop for books — not only because its prices were better for certain titles, but so she could get her course materials quickly. The campus bookstore could sometimes take a week or two. Unacceptable.

“Teachers will start assigning reading on the first day,” McFall, a 22-year-old fashion-merchandising major, told Forbes. “You get behind if you don’t have that textbook. If I buy it on [Amazon], it’s usually because I can get it faster than the bookstore.”

For decades, Amazon’s lower prices and speedier delivery have blown a crater in the college bookstore business. Given the option to shop around, students only buy about one-third of their course materials at the campus store.

Now the bookstores are fighting back. They say they’ve hit on a plan that would, almost magically, quash competition from online rivals like Amazon. T.C.U. is among the colleges considering a model that would automatically charge students for textbooks on their tuition bills, which can be covered by financial aid, and get them to students by the time classes begin. Books are typically discounted 30% or more, said the bookstores, who negotiate volume discounts. Students must return materials at the end of the semester.

Despite reservations from education advocates who worry it limits purchasing options for students, the plan, dubbed Inclusive Access, is spreading like kudzu. It rose out of a 2015 rule from the U.S. Department of Education that permitted universities to include the cost of textbooks with tuition, as long as prices were under competitive market rates and students could opt out.

Bookstores latched onto the idea during the pandemic. They were looking to boost sales at a time when they were hamstrung by closures, declining enrollment numbers and the seismic shift to digital textbooks — and still are.

In the 2022-23 academic year, Inclusive Access already captured the business of 44% of students, worth an estimated $1.4 billion annually, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Illinois-based Follett Corp., a privately held company (annual sales: $1.6 billion) that operates roughly one-third of college bookstores, said the number of its campuses that have adopted the Inclusive Access model has tripled to 450 since 2019. New Jersey-based Barnes & Noble Education (annual sales: $1.5 billion), which spun out of the bookseller chain in 2015 and also runs a third of campus bookstores, said it has over 150 schools signed up for Inclusive Access, up from just four in 2019. (The colleges themselves operate the other one-third of campus bookstores.)

Overnight, schools that switched to Inclusive Access brought guaranteed revenue to booksellers. Sell-through rates, which measure the percentage of course materials students purchase at the campus bookstore, skyrocketed from about 30% before Inclusive Access to north of 80 or 90%, according to Follett and Barnes & Noble Education. Few students opt out, the companies said, because they like the prices and convenience.

It’s a clever way to beat Amazon. Unable to compete, Follett and Barnes & Noble Education separated their customers from the open marketplace and bundled their products with something Amazon couldn’t sell — college tuition. The bookstore gets the customer without ever having to go up against the online behemoth, which is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for its own alleged anti-competitive practices. (Amazon has said it disagrees with the allegations, and will contest the lawsuit.)

“It’s a significant volume increase because you’re capturing all of the course material market share in an institution,” Jonathan Shar, who oversees campus stores operated by Barnes & Noble Education, told Forbes. “Plus, it’s much more predictable.”

Amazon Prices

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the impact Inclusive Access is having on its textbook sales. Amazon said it may offer discounts to schools that buy books in bulk, but it’s been winding down certain aspects of its textbook business. In April, it stopped renting physical textbooks to students and in 2020 it stopped buying textbooks back from students.

Last year, 37% of students purchased books from Amazon. That’s down from 46% in 2019, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Selling textbooks isn’t the business it used to be. A decade ago, students spent $4.8 billion a year on textbooks, according to research firm Words Rated. Today, it’s about $3.2 billion. During the 2022-23 school year, students spent an average of $285 on course materials, the lowest figure since the National Association of College Stores began tracking spending 16 years ago.

That’s partly the result of a rapid shift to lower-cost digital textbooks, with 55% of course materials now digital, up sharply from 15% prior to the pandemic, according to Emmanuel Kolady, Follett’s CEO. More textbooks are being made available online for free from sites like OpenStax, too. Nearly three-quarters of students say they were assigned at least one free course material in the latest academic year, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Company’s ‘Cornerstone’

Barnes & Noble Education, a publicly traded company that runs 800 campus bookstores, has described Inclusive Access to investors as a “cornerstone” of its plan to return to profitable growth, noting that course-material revenue rises more than 80% and gross profit nearly doubles after schools switch to the new model.

The company has lost a cumulative $600 million since 2018. Last year’s sales were 23% below pre-pandemic levels. This summer, it had to negotiate an extension on its loan payments because it couldn’t come up with enough cash. As part of the deal, it gave up two board seats and said it would explore selling the company. Its stock price has lost 90% of its value in the last two years, tumbling to less than $1 a share.

“It feels like this is their first, second and third priority,” said Ryan MacDonald, an analyst at Needham who covers Barnes & Noble Education, referring to Inclusive Access, which the company calls “First Day Complete.”

Benefits For Students

The booksellers claim the program saves students money. Follett said that students spend an average of 30% less than if they were to buy new books and are better equipped for classes as Inclusive Access gets them their materials before the semester begins.

At New York University, for instance, where Follett runs bookselling, students are automatically billed for books unless they opt out. Most are digital rentals. A textbook for an introductory biology class is priced at $36.75, which gives students access to a digital copy for the semester. That’s 20% less than if they went directly to the publisher’s website and rented it for the term. It’s 40% less than on Amazon, which only offers the option to buy the digital version, not rent it.

The math, however, is not always transparent. According to a report from the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, which analyzed 52 book-buying contracts, it’s “hard, if not impossible” to figure out how deep the discounts are because schools don’t make it clear what the discount is based on.

Savings can be less meaningful for students who would have otherwise bought used books or borrowed books, said Nicole Allen, director of open education at SPARC, a nonprofit that advocates for more course materials to be free. The one-quarter of students who intentionally skip buying certain books each semester, usually because they don’t think they need it, are also charged, she said. As more schools migrate to Inclusive Access, Allen questions whether discounts will disappear since publishers have a long history of raising prices.

“This is already a captive market because students are told what to buy,” Allen told Forbes. “Inclusive Access makes it an even more captive market by telling students how they’re going to buy it.”

Even without Inclusive Access, students can be limited in their comparison shopping. More and more professors are assigning books with single-use access codes, available for an additional fee, which students use to access quizzes, homework and other materials online. Promoted by publishers who benefit from the new revenue stream, they’re often sold exclusively by the campus bookstore and cannot be resold.

Follett’s president Ryan Petersen predicts that a newer variant of the model called Equitable Access, where students pay a flat fee for their materials regardless of the courses they’re taking, will be adopted by most schools in the next five years.

“We’re having this conversation with every campus we can,” Petersen told Forbes, “potentially even to campuses who are sick of hearing about it.”

[hippiegoth97]

Diary of a Hawkins Hussy: A Stranger Things x Reader Anthology

Banner by me :)

Master List

Content Warning 18+ Only, Minors DNI: swearing, smut, alcohol use, heavy kissing, protected sex, oral sex, fluff, crying, mention of character death, mention of small argument, break-up

Word Count: 14.6k

Divider by @firefly-graphics

Diary Entry #6: Scott Clarke

December 8th, 1984

Dear diary,

Tonight I attended the volunteer meeting for this year's Snow Ball dance for Hawkins Middle School. I'd been approached by the PTA to volunteer as the DJ for said dance, which I'm more than happy to do. All of us met in the teacher's lounge at the middle school, sharing coffee and cookies as we discussed the plans for the event. I didn't necessarily need to be there for the entire thing, except for the five minutes spent telling me not to play any music that would be deemed as vulgar. But I stuck around anyway, Ididn't have anywhere else to be.

I listened to the various issues of chaperones, decorations, photos, ticket sales, refreshments, dress code, etc. until my ears were about to bleed. It was all pretty damn dull. Safe to say I hope I never end up in meetings like this because I happened to pop out a child of my own. But, nevertheless, I sat and heard it all. No one else got up to leave once their particular subject was covered, so I figured it would be rather rude to do so myself.

I recognized a few faces as well. Nancy Wheeler, who's helping with refreshments and decorations. Jonathan Byers, the photographer, naturally. I almost never see him without a camera around his neck. And someone Ihaven't had the pleasure to speak to yet, Scott Clarke. I know his face and his name very well. A certain group of middle schoolers have told me all about him, how kind and smart he is, what a great teacher he's proven himself to be. And damn, does he know how to rock a mustache. But that part is just my own observation.

I'd meant to have a small word with Scott once the meeting concluded, get to know him a little better. But everyone cleared out pretty quickly, so Ididn't get the chance. Oh, well. I suppose there's always time for introductions at the dance itself.

December 16th, 1984

Dear diary,

Last night was the Snow Ball Dance. Oh, it was a magical night. All the kids were dressed up nice, and it was so sweet to watch them dance with their little crushes and take photos with their friends. I played all the right songs to fit every single moment, I've never felt music flow better, even at my own school functions. And best of all, I got to officially make Scott Clarke's acquaintance...

The 1984 Hawkins Middle Snow Ball Dance is in full swing. You're situated at the DJ booth at the head of the gymnasium, a couple bins of records from the shop sat beside you on the platform. "Lucky Star" by Madonna plays over the sound system, and you look out over the space. The decorators really outdid themselves. Blue and white streamers surround the massive area that's been transformed into the dance floor. A shining disco ball spins overhead, casting little spots of light all around like illusionary snow.

A sea of kids fills out the floor, dressed to the nines in their holiday best. Cutesy dresses and scrunchied ponytails, sweater vests and suit jackets. They look absolutely adorable. It makes you miss your own school dances. The music, the sickly sweet fruit punch, hearts all aflutter while you wait for your all-time crush to ask you to dance. The sweating hands meeting waists and shoulders when you finally take to the floor. Apprehensive kisses during the slow songs, once you've made sure the chaperones aren't looking. It's a universal adolescent experience, charged with anxiety and hormones from slowly budding bodies. And that's before high school.

Homecoming and prom are different animals entirely. There's louder, more mature music. Not too mature, of course. Sexual energy runs rampant, from suggestive dancing, to sneaking off to the library to make out or hook up. Someone's always spiking the punch with vodka. And it isn't unheard of to end up smoking weed in your date's car while they try to cop a feel. But there's none of that to be found here, no. This is far more innocent and naive. The sweet spot in life between becoming who you're meant to be, while also free from any real worries in the world.

You make further observations, finding Nancy Wheeler stationed at the punch bowl, and Jonathan Byers snapping photos for the kids. Parents and teachers are spread out around the perimeter, ensuring there's no funny business going on. What funny business could go on between ten-to-twelve-year-olds, you have no clue. Scott Clarke is taking tickets at the door, leaving you only able to see him through the little windows on the other side of the gym. You're hoping he'll get to switch jobs with one of the chaperones at some point, and maybe you'll manage to catch his eye.

"Twist of Fate" starts to play, and you see Dustin Henderson enter the dance to meet his friends. He's looking very sharp this evening, a spiffy suit and his hair styled into an adorable curly coiff. You wonder if his mom helped him get it that way, it looks really cute on him. He joins Will, Lucas, Mike, and a redhead you've come to know as Max Mayfield. She's been around the shop a few times with her older brother, Billy Hargrove. They definitely do not get along, they constantly argue with each other. Typical sibling rivalry. You watch the kiddos converse, your heart swelling at their smiles and inaudible laughter. They've been through a lot, with Will going missing, and his ongoing troubles. He seems to be doing a whole lot better now, and you're glad to see that his friends have stuck by him after all this time.

You decide to slow things down a bit, putting on Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time". Lucas and Max are the first to go towards the floor, and then a pretty girl asks Will to dance. This leaves Mike and Dustin without partners, and you feel a bit bad for them. Dustin attempts to ask one of the perceived popular girls to dance, and fails miserably. The look of rejection on his face breaks your heart. He goes in again, but the girls scurry away when they see him coming. He looks all around him, finding there's nobody left to ask. Dustin goes off to the side, sitting on the bleachers to cry. You're just about to leave your post to ask him to dance to help him feel better. But before you can, you see Nancy approach him instead. They go out to the floor together, making all the other girls get jealous that they aren't the ones dancing with him now. You smile at the cute display, it's very sweet of her to do that for Dustin.

"Looks like Henderson is the coolest kid at the dance now." A male voice says beside you, taking you by surprise. You turn to find Scott Clark standing on the platform with you, hands clasped behind his back. It appears he's gotten the chance to switch jobs after all.

"Yeah, all the girls will be clamoring for a turn now." You giggle, making him laugh lightly as well.

"Y/N, right? I saw you at the meeting last week." Scott says, smiling down at you. He's very tall, and slim. He's wearing a grey sweater vest with reindeer on it, with a simple black jacket over top and matching slacks. The collar of a white button-up pokes out from the vest, and the knot of a red tie as well. His kind face gazes down at you, a thick mustache and parted black hair dressing it with humble masculinity.

"Yes, that's right. And you, are the famous Scott Clarke." You reply, putting your hand out to shake his. He takes hold of it, chuckling at your words.

"Famous, huh? And why would that be?" He asks curiously.

"Well, the charges in your A.V. Club just happen to be some of my best customers. I own Waxed Out Records downtown. And those kids cannot get enough of you." You explain, and he nods.

"Oh, I see. I'm glad I'm interesting enough for them to tell such a beautiful woman like yourself about me." He laughs, blushing slightly.

"Hmm, smart, handsome, and good at flattery? I can see why the kids like you so much." You giggle playfully. You're getting a little excited now, only a couple minutes in and Scott has already called you beautiful. You hatch an intriguing idea inside your head, quickly shuffling through your albums to find Synchronicity by The Police. You slip it out of the sleeve, and put it on your turntable. The opening notes of "Every Breath You Take" flow through the speakers, and you turn to a rather quiet Scott with a proposition. "Care for a dance, Mr. Clarke?" You ask, holding out your hand.

"Oh, I'm not much of a dancer, Y/N. It's very kind of you to offer." Scott shakes his head, feeling very bashful all of a sudden.

"I can show you, it's easy." You insist politely.

"It wouldn't be appropriate, I'm meant to be watching the kids." He shoots you down again, but you refuse to give up so easily.

"And what better place to watch them from than up here? You can see the entire floor, Scott. And I'll help you keep watch." He considers your words carefully, and you continue. "It's one little dance. C'mon, it'll be fun." You flash him your best smile, luring him in.

"Alright. But only because I'd be an idiot to say no to someone so pretty." Scott answers, somewhat flustered. It's not like him to toss responsibility and professionalism out the window like this. But he likes you, even if you are a little over-assertive. He hardly ever lets loose. Hell, he isn't sure he has let loose before in his entire life.

"Keep it up with those compliments, Scott, and we're gonna have a lot more to worry about than just dancing." You quip as he lets you take his hand. You lead him to a more open space on the platform, placing his hands on your waist. "There we are." You say softly, smiling kindly at him. He tries his best to return it, but it comes out a bit crooked. His large palms warm your flesh through your blouse and jeans, sending a rush of excitement over you. Your wrap your arms around his shoulders, bringing your bodies closer together. He breathes in sharply at the proximity, clearly nervous at doing such a bold thing with a woman he's just met. "Okay, now, just feel the music. Move with it." You instruct, leading him to sway side to side to the song.

He accidentally steps on your foot, making you yelp. "I'm sorry. I told you, I'm no good at this." He apologizes, about to pull away. But you stop him.

"It's okay, Scott. Just relax." You reassure him, and he takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down. You continue to move together to the music, and he gradually gets the hang of it. "See? You've got it." You giggle with pride, and he smiles. You gaze into each other's eyes, realizing just how romantic a moment like this is. Slow dancing to a cheesy song, bodies held close together, radiating with intense anticipation.

"How old are you, anyway?" Scott asks, finding his voice after a good period of silence.

"Twenty. What about you?" You turn the question back onto him, though you don't really care how old he is.

"Thirty-six." He answers. "Probably a little old for you, right?" He asks in a self-deprecating way.

"Not at all, Scott. I don't care about stuff like that. Look, I know we just met, like, five minutes ago. But, I really like you." You speak honestly, unable to help yourself. You really dig Scott's quirky, inexperienced disposition. He's sweet, and gentle, reminding you of someone you lost, that the world lost. Bob. The name pops into your head against your will. The name still brings you quite a lot of pain, even after all the time that's passed. It's funny, because Scott is almost the exact opposite of him, at least in regard to looks. But dancing with this man reminds you of the amazing person you once had, the one you set free and into the arms of another.

"I like you too, Y/N. You seem very nice. I'd like to get to know you better." Scott says sweetly, and you feel a twinge in your chest. You love the idea of getting closer to Scott, very much. But you also have an odd sense of deja vu, like you're heading down the same dead-end road you have before.

"W-When?" You shove the unpleasant thoughts from your mind, suppressing the wince that begs to plague your face.

"Oh, well, I'm not sure. I could come by your store sometime, if you like." He offers, and you nod frantically.

"I'd like that. I'm there almost every day, so whatever works for you." You reply, speaking a little too eagerly. You're overcompensating, and you hope it isn't obvious to him.

"Sure thing. I'll be there as soon as I have the time." He says, though his eyes drift away from yours for a moment. He gets an odd look on his face. Confusion, and possibly disgust, as he looks out at the crowd of kids.

"What's wrong?" You ask.

"I think I just saw Mike Wheeler kissing his cousin." Scott says, still looking behind you into the crowd.

"What?" You ask with a laugh. Surely he can't be serious. "Mike Wheeler? Kissing his cousin? No way."

Scott observes the girl in question for a moment longer, not registering your words just yet. But once he does, he realizes that he must be imagining things. But that girl Mike's with looks just like the cousin he brought to school while Will was missing. Well, not just like her. That other girl had blonde hair, and this one has brown. But...their faces are almost identical. Aren't they? Be serious, Scott. That's ridiculous. You know Mike, there's no way a boy like him would kiss his own cousin. Don't be stupid. He chuckles to himself, shaking his head as he dismisses the idea altogether. "Sorry, I must be mistaken. She just looks a bit like someone else. Forget it."

"Whatever you say. Where are they anyway?" You ask, turning your head to pick the little couple out in the mass of children. Scott points them out to you, and you don't see anything out of the ordinary. You have no idea who this 'cousin' is that he spoke of. But you doubt Mike would ever do something like that. You're surprised he's kissing a girl at all. He gives off the impression that he believes all girls have cooties, pretty typical for boys his age. "It's cute, let them have their little kiss. We were in their shoes once." You say, hoping he's not going to go bust them for 'breaking the rules' or something.

"I suppose you're right. Though, I wouldn't know from experience. If my crap dance moves weren't enough indication." He jokes, putting himself down again.

"You're not crap, Scott. You're doing great." You're reminded of a certain now-deceased RadioShack employee again, who had the same habit of doubting himself at every turn. It's getting harder to ignore, and you wonder if maybe this whole thing is a bad idea.

...the rest of the night was pretty uneventful. Scott and I finished our dance, and he told me he'd come visit me soon at the store. He returned to his post as a pair of watchful eyes, and I continued to spin the records for the kids. It was nice, he was nice. But I feel so guilty, diary. I hate that I kept thinking about my ex most of the time we were dancing. It probably doesn't help that they were close friends, either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're the same person at all. I thinkI'm just looking for Bob in places he isn't, because I feel awful for letting him leave my life. Maybe if we'd stuck it out, he wouldn't be dead. Maybe if we'd tried a little harder, Iwouldn't be killing myself over this new potential partner. Ugh, I feel like crawling out of my own skin at this point. I think I need a good smoke to mellow myself out. I'm off to the alley behind the store, I gotta clear my head.

December 20th, 1984

Dear diary,

After a few days of waiting, wondering if Scott would follow through (while also wondering if I even wanted him to follow through), he finally showed up to the shop this afternoon. He was very happy to see me, and seeing his friendly smile made he happy to see him, too. We had a nice long chat, learning the basics. What I found most interesting, though, was his fondness for Weird Al Yankovic. Of all the music in the world, this man enjoys song parodies. It suits him, though, in an odd way. I guess it just further presses him into that nerd archetype.

We also talked about movies, horror and science fiction, in particular. It appears we have that affection in common. So we made an arrangement for me to go to his house tomorrow night to watch one. The Thing, a big favorite for us both. Scott totally geeked out telling me about how the impressive effects were achieved, and I was utterly spellbound while listening to him speak. He's got a confident, precise tone when he knows what he's talking about. I felt like one of his students, strangely enough. I'm sure it's just a habit for him to talk in such a teacher-ly way. It only added to his charm, though.

After a while, he had to get home. The sun had long since set outside the shop, drenching Hawkins in ice-cold darkness. I definitely wasn't looking forward to the freezing walk to my car in the lot after closing. Scott left for the night, and I feel much more confident about pursuing...whatever this is with him. I think I need to stop fixating on the past, and focus on the present, diary. Bob is gone, and he's never coming back. And I have a chance here, to have something good. Not a one-night stand, or a fling that I know is inevitably going to end. But a real relationship.

December 22nd, 1984

Dear diary,

I had a wonderful time with Scott last night. We put on the movie we previously agreed upon, and got cozy on his small sofa. He put his arm around me right away, keeping me close. I immediately felt so comfortable and safe with him. And I swear, neither of us meant to rush into anything. But it was like we couldn't help ourselves, forgetting all about the film and ending up a sweating mess on his couch. I never expected him to be up for that so early, but I didn't mind either way. And I don't regret it either, it felt so right...

"Alright, popcorn, wine, lights off..." Scott lists on the way back from his kitchen with a large bowl of popcorn in his hands, flicking the living room light switch to darken it on his journey. "...am I missing anything?" He asks as he sits down beside you on the sofa.

"Nothing besides press 'play'." You answer with a smile, stealing a small handful of corn from the bowl. You pop a piece in your mouth, munching giddily. You've been buzzing with excitement from the moment you entered Scott's house. It's humble, but very neat and tidy. He's got shelves of books on all manner of scientific subjects, and more knick knacks and figurines than you can bother to count. A telescope sits by the window to your right, positioned at the night sky. A coffee table sits a couple feet ahead of the couch, two half-drunk glasses of wine sat atop it. Everything else in his home is pretty standard, a good lot of it showing obvious signs of love and care. There's not a speck of dust to be found anywhere, no area neglected by his clear attention to detail.

"Perfect. Showtime." He says gleefully, clicking the remote to start the tape. His lanky arm goes around your shoulder, bringing your body in closer to his. You lean into it, accepting his warmth. His thumb brushes over your arm lightly, making your skin tingle. You continue to take small bunches of popcorn from the bowl in his lap, trying your best to keep your mind in an innocent enough place. You doubt Scott would be very receptive to you making any moves tonight.

You both focus on watching the movie, doing your best to ignore the air around you charging up with intense energy. Scott's thumb continues to brush up and down your arm, which usually wouldn't get you so hot and bothered. But the whisper of skin against skin is driving you crazy. You sigh lightly, shifting a little in your seat as you struggle to contain yourself.

"Everything okay?" He asks with quiet concern in your ear, and you swear you can almost feel his mustache tickling your flesh. It sends a shiver up your spine, making you gasp. "Are you cold?" He asks, drawing your face to turn towards his. "I can get you a blanket if you'd like." He offers, wearing a sweet smile you recognize all too well.

"No, I'm okay. Thank you, though." You reply, barely above a whisper. You've just now realized how close his mouth is in relation to yours. You find yourself staring at it, wanting so badly to lean in and kiss him. But you're afraid that if you do, it'll scare him away. Your eyes flick back up to his own, finding his expression has changed. His mouth is slightly agape, and you can feel his thumb brushing even quicker against your skin now. He's nervous, coming to the same conclusion you did just seconds ago.

"O-okay." Scott exhales shakily, preparing to take a leap. One he had no real intention of taking tonight, but he finds himself ready to take the plunge all the same. There's something about you, the way you look at him. It's as if you've known him for years, and you see him in a manner no one else has before. It feels entirely impossible, hell, it is impossible. You barely know each other at all, everything you've learned thus far is only surface-level. But nevertheless, his mind beckons him to say 'screw it' and dive in head first anyway. Before he can change his own mind, he presses his lips to yours.

"Mmm." You immediately melt against him, admiring the way his mustache bristles against your nose. Rushed breaths leave you both as you explore each other's mouths. Scott's a little shy, at first, afraid to open up to you. But you work him up to it, carefully reading his lips with your own, encouraging him to do the same. He responds pretty well to this, allowing you to pry his mouth open just a tad. You slide the tip of your tongue inside, coaxing his own to come out and play. He does, again, very cautiously. But what starts off as little darts in and out, turns into writhing and tangling with you in no time at all. You moan into the kiss, your entire body heating up from the inside out. You clumsily move the popcorn bowl off his lap and over to the table, scrambling to put yourself there instead. "Is this okay?" You ask between kisses.

"Yeah." Scott responds simply, his hands going to your waist out of instinct. He's not completely new to this, he's had a few girlfriends over the years. And he's also a man of science, he knows his way around the female anatomy. It's definitely been a while for him, and he usually doesn't move so damn quickly. But it's like his body is begging for yours, eager to do a very different kind of dance than the one you shared at the Snow Ball.

"Touch me, Scott. Please." You plead, rolling your hips over top of him. You can sense his erection forming in his jeans beneath you, the stiffness felt through your own layers of cotton and denim.

"W-where should I..." He starts to ask, unsure what to do next.

"Anywhere." You whine as you grind on him steadily. His hands go for the closest place, taking hold of your ass. You moan in his grasp, his long fingers massaging with just enough force to bring you pleasure. He's so gentle with you, and you're really enjoying it. You're getting so wet already, your panties becoming slick. You break away from his lips, lifting your shirt over your head and tossing it to the floor.

"You're so beautiful, Y/N." Scott says in awe, eyes boggling at your perfect tits sat inside your pink bra.

"Thank you. You're very handsome too." You reply breathlessly, reaching behind your back to unclasp your bra. The straps fall down your shoulders, and you slip the thing off to join your top.

"Wow." He murmurs. His hands leave your ass, slowly creeping up your sides. His fingers are a little cold, giving you goosebumps. He caresses your flesh on his way upwards, meticulously watching every move his hands make. He eventually closes around the swells of your chest, using that same tender pressure from before.

"Scott." You moan his name aloud, rolling your hips faster, pressing yourself down onto his dick even harder.

"Y/N." He groans at the friction, unable to believe any of this is happening. He wonders if maybe he should stop, if perhaps this is all moving too fast. But the unbelievable sounds you're making while he touches you, the way you're riling yourself up by grinding on his lap... It's too much to say 'no' to. He wants you, every little part of you. Right now.

"I want you, baby. Can I have you?" You ask, stealing the desperate thought right out of his head.

"Yes." Scott replies. Having earned his permission, you waste no time in tugging at his sweater. He lifts his arms up to help you take it off, revealing his thin torso once it falls away. He's got a light peppering of chest hair, and a little bit of a belly. And every last inch of his pale body drives you wild. You lean down to press a blazing kiss to his neck, lightly sucking on his flesh to leave a small hickey behind. "Damn." He murmurs, savoring the way your lips and teeth feel on his throat. He grabs hold of your breasts again, carefully rolling your nipples between his fingers. You whimper at the stimulation, biting down a little harder on Scott's neck. Not too rough, just enough to drive him nuts. He moans breathily in response, delighting in the calculated sting.

"You like that?" You ask seductively, lifting yourself up a bit so you can reach his concealed cock. You palm him through his jeans, and he moans a little louder this time.

"Yes." He replies, hoping you never stop touching him. His lips find yours, your tongues gladly meeting once again. Your hands go for his belt, fumbling to open it up. The buckle jingles once you do, and you waste no time unzipping his pants and reaching inside. Your grope him through his briefs first, just in case he changes his mind. "It's alright, keep going." Scott encourages you to take what you want, he has no intention of stopping you. You smirk against his lips, and slip under the elastic of his underwear to fully grab hold of his dick. "Fuck." Scott mutters as your palm closes around his shaft.

"I thought teachers weren't supposed to swear." You tease, pumping him slowly in your hand. His cock is long and slim, just like the rest of him.

"I don't make a habit of it, but what else can I really say when you've got your hand in my pants?" He chuckles back, taking a turn kissing your neck now. The hairs of his mustache make you flinch at first, and he stops. "You alright?" He asks, worried he's done something wrong.

"Yeah, it just tickles." You giggle, tilting your head to give him better access. You hold back the urge to squirm when the caterpillar on his face meets your flesh. His warm lips leave wet kisses on your skin, the hums of his moans and grunts vibrating against you. You continue stroking his length, keeping your slow pace. You'd hate for him to cum too early. You're so absorbed in the feeling of his heated kisses, and how perfect his dick is in your grasp, that you're taken by surprise when Scott lowers his head to take your left nipple into his mouth. He suckles on you gently, rolling his tongue around the bud. His hand still massages your other breast, leaving no part of your chest neglected. "Fuck, baby." You whimper, squeezing him slightly.

"Take it easy, I won't last long if you do that." He says hastily, not wanting to stop worshipping your perfect tits.

"Sorry." You loosen your grip, and stop stroking him altogether. You keep his cock warm in your palm, waiting for him to be ready for the next step. You watch his mouth work its magic on you, switching over to your other boob now. You reward him with whimpers and moans, an occasional 'feels so good'. You're completely soaked inside your jeans, growing more needy by the second. You want him inside you, you don't want to wait anymore. But you force yourself to take this slow, to let him set the pace.

"Can I keep going, Y/N?" Scott asks, pulling his swollen lips away from yours chest.

"Yeah." You nod, eager for him to touch your wet pussy. He reaches his hand down to the button of your jeans, undoing it with ease and pulling the zipper down. He gazes into your eyes, holding your stare as his spindly fingers slip inside your panties. His fingertips brush against your needy clit, making you moan for him. He smiles at your reaction, rubbing slow, methodical circles around the puffy nub. "Fuck." You whimper. His touch is too perfect. He knows the exact right amount of pressure to use, the right speed to warm you up for him.

"You like that?" Scott asks lowly, mirroring your question from earlier.

"Yes." You answer impatiently, giving him another hungry kiss. He pushes you a bit further, gliding two fingers inside your dripping cunt. You moan against his mouth, unable to resist taking his bottom lip between your teeth. He curls his knuckles inside you, brushing against your g-spot. You're already such a mess, your juices forming a small puddle in his palm.

"God, you're so wet." Scott says, as if he's surprised that you're this turned on.

"Just for you, baby." You smirk, rubbing the tip of his dick with your thumb. You spread the sticky bead of precum around in circles, hoping to lure him towards fucking you.

"I like it when you call me that. No one's ever done that before." He says in adoration, giving you a meaningful look while his fingers continue to move inside you. Your heart flutters, taken aback by his affectionate words.

"Then I'll call you baby any time you want." You reply, cupping his cheek and giving him a much more tender kiss this time. Scott carefully maneuvers you to lay you down on the couch, with him kneeling above you. You continue to kiss passionately, hands still shoved in each other's pants. He pulls away for a moment, breathing heavily in your face. "What's wrong?" You ask, noticing he looks disappointed all of a sudden.

"I just realized I don't have any condoms." He answers sadly. He mentally curses himself for not keeping such things on hand. "I'm sorry." He apologizes, about to get off of you and shut this whole thing down. But you gently put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"I keep a few in my purse." You state simply, leaning over the edge of the couch to pick up your bag from the floor. You dig around for a moment, before pulling a Trojan out and handing it to Scott. "And just so you know, I'm on the pill. So even if we didn't have one, it wouldn't really be a problem." You explain casually, letting your purse fall back to the carpet below.

"I'll keep that in mind." He responds awkwardly. He's a little shocked at you being so forward, despite the fact that you've been building up to sex for the last fifteen minutes.

"Now, where were we?" You ask teasingly, putting your hand on the back of his head to bring him back down to you. You devour his mouth with your own, clumsily removing your jeans and kicking them onto the floor. He does the same, having taken his hand away from your pussy. You let out a light whine at the loss, which made his cock twitch. He stops kissing you, taking a moment to look at your entire body in the dim light from the TV.

"You're absolutely gorgeous, Y/N. I've never been with anyone like you." Scott compliments you, running his hands along your sides with care. Everything about you is so perfect in his eyes. Your supple skin, the curves of your breasts, hips, and thighs, and the face of a goddess to top it all off. You're an absolute dream, one he never wants to wake up from.

"You're too sweet." Your cheeks tinge bright pink at his compliment. You've heard those words so many times, from so many people. But they never fail to make you feel special, like it's the first time you've ever heard them. You spread your legs open, prompting him to keep things moving. His eyes drift down to your cunt, breath catching at your arousal glistening in what little light flashes from the television. He sits back on his knees for a moment, opening the condom and rolling the latex over his cock. He crawls over to you, putting himself between your legs. His hands rest at your waist, gripping your hips tenderly.

"You ready?" Scott asks, eyes meeting yours again.

"Yeah." You nod, giving him a reassuring smile. He's looking a little nervous again, which you find extremely cute. He scoots himself closer, his tip just barely making contact with your slick entrance. You whimper beneath him, hoping he'll tease you just a bit more. He does, slowly rubbing the head of his dick up and down from your clit to your folds. "Scott." You let out a needy moan, your hands going to his shoulders to hang on and keep him close.

"Those noises you make are driving me crazy, Y/N." Scott says, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of his tip sliding against your pussy. You're so warm, and soaked, he can't help spreading your arousal all around. Wet sounds mingle with your heavy breathing, the horrific screams from the movie serving as mostly-ignored background noise.

"Baby, please...I need you inside me." Your back arches off the couch as his teasing becomes too much, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"Right, sorry." He chuckles breathily, realizing just how long he's been winding you up. Scott lowers his head to give you another kiss, carefully thrusting his hips forward to slip inside of you. You moan into each other's mouths, keeping your bodies still for a moment. His cock fills you up nicely, his tip hitting your cervix. Your walls are so snug around him, he could just melt.

"Please..." You plead against his lips, wrapping your legs around his waist in a desperate attempt to make him start thrusting.

"So impatient..." Scott chuckles lowly, setting a slow, gentle pace. His dick glides in and out of your pussy, brushing ever so slightly against your g-spot. He keeps kissing you the whole time, his tongue rolling passionately with yours. He's not really one for dirty talk, he thinks the humble moans and grunts speak for themselves. You don't mind being quiet, savoring every thrust Scott makes and letting out shuddering breaths and muted emissions of pleasure. It's comfortable, and affectionate, letting you both enjoy this act for what it is. An expression of intense feelings for the other person, illustrated with languid bodily movements.

Scott increases his speed just a tad, rocking his hips against you nice and steady. You don't usually go so slow, but doing it with him feels just as good as the rough, filthy fucking you usually do. If not better. He's worshipping your body with his, holding you in a caring grasp to make you feel safe. And you're keeping him just as close, arms and legs wrapped around his slender form as much as you can manage. Your pleasure builds gradually, far longer than you've ever done before. But as Scott's mouth moves in perfect sync with yours, and his length fills you again and again, you jump to the only possible conclusion. You're not just having sex with Scott Clarke. You're making love to him. Well, more like he's making love to you.

The thought makes your stomach drop, the way it does when you ride a rollercoaster over that first towering peak, plummeting at high speed down the rickety wooden slope. You're afraid. Afraid to let yourself be loved. Afraid of this not working out. Afraid of being alone again. Afraid that once this night is over, Scott will regret moving so fast and end things before they really begin. You're so lost in these frightening ideas, that you don't notice his body going still over yours.

"Y/N, what's wrong?" He asks softly, wiping the tear from your cheek you didn't even know was there. You open your eyes, finding his concerned face inspecting your own.

"Nothing." You shake your head, trying to play it off. You force a smile, doing your best to throw him off the scent. But your trembling bottom lip gives you away.

"Am I doing this wrong? Am I hurting you?" He asks in a worried tone, which makes you laugh. His brows furrow in confusion, wondering if you're making fun of him.

"No, of course not!" You reassure him, cupping his face kindly. "You're doing great, I promise. I'm just in my own head." You explain with a sigh, wanting to change the subject. You can't believe you're actually crying in the middle of sex. How embarrassing.

"In your own head about what?" He presses you, overcome with an intense desire to fix whatever it is that's making you sad.

"Scott, it really doesn't matter, okay? Just, please, continue." You insist, becoming a little frustrated now.

"It matters to me." He says sincerely, stroking your face. How can you possibly blow him off when he's looking at you like that?

"I just—" You pause, sighing again. You're not sure how much you should tell him. "I just really like you, and I haven't had the best luck with relationships. I don't want to mess this up." You say, giving him just enough for him to understand, without going too much into detail.

"I really like you too, Y/N. Should we stop?" He asks.

"Do you want to stop?" You turn the question back around on him. You want to keep going, to let him into your heart despite all your fears.

"No. Do you?" He answers honestly. He's been enjoying this time with you, even if it's been interrupted by your own self-doubt. He understands where you're coming from. This thing you have is so new, if not a little terrifying. But nothing about it feels wrong, quite the opposite, actually.

"No. I really don't." You shake your head, smiling for real this time. "I want to keep going. Please?" You bite your lip expectantly, hoping he'll continue.

"Okay. But if you need me to stop, just say so, and I will. Deal?" He says sweetly.

"Deal." You reply. And with that, his lips find yours, reigniting the intense flame inside of you. He starts to thrust again, having kept himself sheathed within your walls this whole time. "Can you go a little faster?" You ask, and he obliges your request. He's still going far slower than most men do, taking his time, enjoying every stroke. "Feels so good, baby." You whisper the praise between kisses, the pleasure knotting itself back up within your belly.

"Mm, so do you." Scott replies breathlessly. He adds a little more force behind his thrusts, just enough to pull those irresistible sounds from your lips. He slowly pulls out, and shoves himself back in a bit quicker.

"Oh!" You moan in surprise, the sensation absolutely exquisite. "Keep doing that, Scott. It's perfect." He does as you request, finding it very enjoyable himself. Carefully slip out, and gently slam back in. He keeps it up, drawing whimpers, groans, and grunts from the both of you. Your bodies start to sweat as pleasure builds up at a sluggish pace. You continue to writhe and kiss together on the couch, ignoring the TV screen turning blue as the tape comes to an end. You don't care about anything except touching and tasting each other any way you can. You could honestly stay like this all night, everything you're doing feels better than you ever thought possible.

"Are you getting close, Y/N?" Scott asks, nearing the end himself. He's surprised to have lasted this long, but it appears pacing himself is really paying off.

"Yes. Speed up a little, baby." You plead, struggling to keep hold of his back with your sweating hands. He nods, thrusting into you with more effort. "Just like that...fuck, don't stop." You whimper as he hits the special spot inside you harder and faster, bringing you so very close to the edge. 

"I won't, I promise." Scott groans, lowering his head to kiss and nip your throat. He can feel your walls threatening to clench around him, pulsing themselves tighter and then looser again. Your juices lube him up, keeping his thrusts fluid and mechanical. He can feel you wetting his pelvis and thighs, sure to leave a spot on the couch. He doesn't mind cleaning up after you. It'll serve as a pleasant reminder of your first night together when he scrubs it out of the cushion later on.

"Oh, Scott...You're gonna make me cum, baby." You moan loudly in warning, your nails digging into his back as you're about to reach your peak. In response, he thrusts even faster, desperate to lose control alongside you. His cock hits deep inside you, sending you careening into ecstasy. "Fuck!" You cry out as your high takes you down. You claw at his back, needing something to hang onto as your thighs begin to shake. Your pussy clamps down on him, pulling him into the pit of bliss with you.

"God, Y/N—" Scott groans against your throat, bucking his hips as his own orgasm washes over him. His sticky load fills the condom, his toes curling at how tightly your cunt is squeezing him. You cum messily around him, the spot beneath you dampening even more. He continues the thrust lazily inside you until his cock goes soft, the two of you sharing passionate kisses while your high subsides. He eventually pulls out, getting off the couch to throw the condom away. He returns to your side, gesturing for you to sit up. You make room for him to sit down, laying your legs across his lap.

"You want a smoke?" You ask, reaching for your purse again.

"No, thank you. And I'd prefer you didn't either." He says politely. He's always found smoking to be a nasty habit, the scent of the smoke alone makes him gag.

"Oh, okay." You ditch the idea altogether, and instead scoot yourself closer to sit sideways on his lap. You wrap your arms around his neck, laying your head on his chest.

"Did you have a good time, Y/N?" Scott asks softly, apprehensively putting his own arms around your waist to hold you close.

"I had a great time, baby." You answer, lifting your head up to give him a gentle kiss. "Did you?"

"Of course. How could I not?" He smiles, brushing a few loose hairs away from your dampened face.

"So, what do we do now?" You question, gazing at Scott's glistening skin that's tinged blue from the idling television.

He thinks it over for a moment, looking around the room for a potential new activity to do together. His eyes settle on the telescope, peeking out at what small amount of sky he can see through the window. It looks pretty clear tonight, and there's few things in the world more romantic than stargazing. "Get up for a second. I want to show you something." He says with a grin, patting your thigh.

"Sure thing, Mr. Clarke." You giggle as you stand up.

"Ugh, please don't call me that." Scott groans, chuckling anyway. He knows you're only teasing, but that name reminds him too much of work. And that's the last thing he wants to think about right now.

"Sorry." You apologize, your cheeks going a bit rosy for saying the wrong thing. You thought maybe he'd be into it...but perhaps that's only because you're into the kinky teacher/student dynamic. You really should know better, Scott's far too clean cut for that.

"It's alright. C'mere." He takes hold of your hand, leading you over to the window. The sheer curtains are parted, the telescope already set to point upwards at Orion. Scott leans down, looking through the scope to make sure it's in the proper position. It ought to be, he's not one to let these things be imprecise. He smiles, satisfied with his findings. "Have a look." He gestures for you to have a turn.

You bend over and squint your eye to gaze into the telescope. You find a vast space of stars sparkling in the sky, some brighter than others. "What exactly am I looking for?" You ask, wondering if this is all an elaborate ruse so he can stare at your ass. Head out of the gutter, Y/N. He's just trying to be romantic. Would it kill you to think with your brain instead of your pussy for once?

"Well, I have the telescope pointed directly at Orion. If you can make out the brightest stars, you should be able to see the general shape of a warrior form." Scott explains in the same confident tone, once again putting you in a studious position. That definitely doesn't help the dirty thoughts inside your head.

You push the lust away, focusing on what he's actually saying. You slowly piece together the shapes, finding a man wielding a bow and arrow twinkling back at you in the night sky. "I see it." You giggle with delight at figuring it out, thanks to Scott's helpful advice. "Is it your favorite, or something?" You ask, standing upright once again.

"It's hard to pick just one. But it's probably one of the easiest to find." He chuckles, and you step closer to him.

"Is that really the only reason? Convenience?" You ask lowly, placing your hand on his chest. The other lowers between your bodies, taking hold of his cock. His breath catches at the contact, he'd honestly almost forgotten either of you were naked until this moment.

"N-no. Of course not." Scott answers shortly, growing in your hand as you start to pump him. Your touch feels really good, but he was trying to have a real conversation with you. He takes hold of your wrist, politely pulling your hand off of his dick. "Slow down, Y/N. We don't have to do everything in one night." He says, making your cheeks burn in shame.

"Sorry." Your face falls, unable to look at him. Typical you, always changing the subject to sex. Using your body as a shield to avoid facing your fear.

"It's alright. No need for the long face." He smiles, lifting your chin up with his finger so he can look into your eyes. "You're not used to pacing yourself, are you?" He asks knowingly, trying his best to dissect what's going on in that gorgeous head of yours.

"No. Not really." You scoff at yourself, rolling your eyes. Of course a brilliant man like him can see right through your defenses.

"I'm not judging you, by the way. It's just an observation." His words attempt to comfort you, but all they do is make you feel worse. "How about we get ready for bed, and I can tell you everything I know about the stars?" He offers, giving you an excuse to stay the night. He certainly doesn't want you to leave, especially not when you're still upset. He knows none of that is on his account, but nevertheless, he wants to ease your mind anyway.

"That sounds nice." You nod, and he leads you by the hand to his bedroom after turning off the TV. He goes to the closet for some pajama bottoms, and gives you one of his shirts to sleep in. You slip it over your head, the scent of fabric softener wafting into your nose. He pulls back the covers on the bed, gesturing for you to climb in with him. "Oh, can I use your bathroom first?" You ask.

"Of course. It's just down the hall and to the left." He replies, getting into his side of the bed to wait for you. You leave the room, quickly locating the bathroom. You step inside, closing and locking the door behind you. You sit down on the closed toilet, suddenly overcome with a fresh batch of tears.

What the hell is wrong with me? You do your best to keep your sobs silent, folding over yourself as you're wracked with guilt. Guilt that shouldn't even be there, but it's turning your stomach nonetheless. You feel like you're betraying Bob by being here, which you know is so fucking stupid. You broke up a long time ago, he started dating Joyce, and then he died in an accident at the Lab. You have no reason to mourn. You have no reason to cry. He wasn't yours anymore, and he still isn't. Hell, you didn't even go to the damn funeral. Because it would've hurt too much.

"Y/N? Is everything alright?" Scott raps two small knocks on the door, snapping you out of your fixation.

"Yeah. I'll be right there." You reply in as calm a tone as you can manage. He can't know you've been crying over a dead ex in his bathroom like a crazy person.

"Okey-doke." He says, and you hear his footsteps recede back down the hall. You let out a sigh of relief once he's far enough away. You have no idea how you're going to last the night like this.

You quickly relieve yourself and wash your hands, checking your eyes to make sure they aren't puffy or red. Deciding they look fine, you go back to the room and climb into bed to cuddle up with Scott. "Sorry, too much wine for my tiny bladder." You say simply, and he nods in understanding. You bring your body close to his, laying your leg over his own and resting your head on his chest. His arm comes around to keep you close, and you share a chaste kiss. You exchange a friendly look with him, the fear and sadness magically washing away again. "So, tell me about those stars." You request, stroking the small tuft of hair on his chest.

"You got it." He coos. He begins to tell you all about the constellations, individual stars within them and what they represent. He expands to the subjects of planets, galaxies, even the universe as a whole. You listen intently, to his fascinating words, and the steady beat of his heart within his chest. His bedtime lecture eventually lulls you to sleep, a very light snore escaping you. Scott takes notice, smiling to himself for calming you down enough to rest. He saw how watery your eyes were when you came back to the room, and his heart ached to see you look so sad. He doesn't know what the cause is, he's sure you won't tell him for a good while. But the least he can do is try to make you happy, and wait until you're ready to fess up.

...this morning, Scott woke me up with some coffee and donuts he'd snuck out to get. He said he didn't have anything to cook me breakfast, so this was the next best thing. I assured him he doesn't have to do all that for me, but he insisted on it. We also made a date for Christmas Eve. I'm not spending it with my parents, and the rest of my family is states away. Scott doesn't have anyone here, either. His parents passed a couple years ago, one after the other. And everyone else is scattered too far and wide to be worth the trip.

Scott plans on cooking a nice dinner for us, which sounds absolutely perfect. We also agreed there's no pressure about buying each other gifts, since we're still so new. But I feel like I should get him something anyway. Something small that I know he'll like. It'll probably have to be something from the shop, given the short notice. I think I've got a B-52's album with his name on it.

December 24th, 1984

Dear diary,

Merry Christmas! I know, I know, it's a day early. But the Eve still counts in my book. I'm very excited to spend tonight with Scott, and to give him the present I've picked out for him. I did not in fact go with the B-52's, or any album at all. I thought it would come off a little lazy if I gave him something from my own store. But I happened to find a miniature brass telescope he can put on his desk at work. It makes sense because he's a science teacher, and it'll also remind him of me every time he looks at it. It's simple, not too flashy, but meaningful. I can't wait to give it to him later, and I really hope he likes it.

I don't expect him to give me anything, since we agreed upon 'no gifts' before. But I just couldn't help myself. Scott means quite a lot to me, even in the small amount of timewe've known each other. And I feel bad for crying the way I was during our first official date. I don'twant him to think I'm not interested in him, or that he's doing anything wrong. He's as far from wrong as you can possibly get. He says and does all the right things, and he's so damn sweet and decent. I really, really like him. I feel like he's exactly what I've been needing. A stable, well-adjusted person who will take care of me. I'll let you know how tonight goes, hopefully it ends with us in his bed like last time.

December 25th, 1984

Dear diary,

Merry Christmas (for real this time). Scott and I had the best time last night. Every last second made me feel like I was in a sappy movie, and I promise Ididn't cry. Well, except out of happiness...

"Merry Christmas, Y/N. Come in." Scott says once he'd opened the door to let you in his house. He's dressed in a red and green striped sweater, paired with some black slacks. His mustache is freshly trimmed, his hair combed nice and neat. "I'll take your coat." He says as you remove it, revealing a short red velvet dress with spaghetti straps. "You look ravishing, honey." He compliments, his eyes dragging over your body. He usually isn't one to ogle, but he can't resist admiring the curves of your hips and your cleavage that's on full display.

"Thank you, baby. You're looking very handsome yourself." You repay him the flattery, noticing his gaze eating up your form which makes you smirk. You knew this little number would catch his eye. You've paired it with some simple red heels, gold jewelry, and light makeup. You give him a quick peck, walking past him towards the living room. You set your purse down on the couch, which holds the small box containing Scott's gift. You'll wait until after dinner to give it to him, hoping to keep it a surprise.

"Dinner's almost ready. Should I pour you a drink?" He asks, putting your coat on the rack beside the front door.

"Yes, please." You give him a content smile, and he nods before disappearing into the kitchen. He brings two glasses of red wine over, handing one off to you before sitting down.

"The roast still needs another thirty minutes. I hope that's okay." Scott says nervously.

"That's fine. I'm just happy to spend this special night with you." You reply sweetly, taking a big sip of your wine.

"Me too." He smiles, running his fingers against his glass anxiously.

"You feelin' okay, baby?" You ask, putting a hand on his thigh to help him relax. He melts at your touch, finding your kind eyes.

"Yeah. Just a little nervous." He chuckles breathily.

"Why's that?" You question, scooting closer to him.

"Well...I know we said no gifts. But, I wanted to give you something anyway." Scott answers, hoping you'll enjoy what he has in mind. He's done a little reading about oral sex, in an effort to expand his horizons. You make him feel open to trying new things, even if they're rather daunting.

"That's okay, I may have gotten you something too." You say cheekily.

"In that case, why don't you go first?" He suggests, putting off his bold proposition for the time being. As much as he wants to please you, he's afraid of executing it poorly.

"Sure." You chirp, setting down your glass. You reach inside your purse, pulling out the small box that you've wrapped up and topped with a bow. "Here you go." You hand it over to him, watching intently as he tears open the paper. He pulls off the top of the box, and his eyes light up at the trinket inside.

"Ah, a telescope." Scott chuckles. He takes it into his hand to admire it.

"For your desk." You explain, drawing his eyes to you.

"Thank you, Y/N. It's very thoughtful. And I'll think of you every time I look at it." He says sweetly, pulling you in for a kiss. You gladly accept his lips on yours, and it doesn't take long for him to push things further. His tongue slips into your mouth, pulling a quiet moan from you. He breaks away briefly, holding your stare with dilated pupils. "Your turn." Scott says lowly, setting his gift on the table. He carefully lays you down on the couch, crouching over you and removing your high heels. They fall loudly to the floor, and he keeps your legs spread open for him. You can take a guess where this is going, excitement growing within you.

"Scott." You whimper when he lowers his head to kiss your neck. His mustache tickles your flesh, and he keeps traveling downwards. He leaves a blazing trail along your chest, one of his hands slipping underneath your dress. His fingers brush against your panties, finding a wet spot already starting to form. He pulls them to the side, and quickly finds your clit. "Fuck." You moan as Scott rubs slow, careful circles on your sensitive bud.

"Have you figured out what your present is yet?" Scott asks, raising his head to look at you. There's a hungry glint in his eye, something you never expected to see from him. He slips two fingers inside your pussy while he waits for you to answer, smiling at the vulgar noise that leaves your lips.

"Yeah." You nod. "I take it you did a little research first?"

"Of course. What kind of man would I be to go into this blind? I want you to actually enjoy it, after all." He explains confidently, pumping his digits in and out of you as he speaks.

"I'm sure I will, Scott." You say softly, bringing his lips back to yours. You really can't get enough when it comes to kissing him. He's got the freshest breath out of anyone you've ever been with. Minty and clean, only slightly tasting of wine. And he's so unbelievably tender with you, like you're a delicate flower in his caring hands. It's not in the way that he thinks you're fragile, it's moreso that he feels you deserve to be cherished. You also love the way his mustache bristles your upper lip, you're not sure how he keeps it so neat and soft. It's oddly comforting, and reminds you of his maturity.

"Can I keep going? I'd hate for the roast to burn." Scott asks, his concern for the food rather endearing.

"Please do. I'm excited to see what you've learned." You give him a nod and a kind smile.

"Right." He exhales nervously, sitting back on his knees for a moment. He glances down between your still-spread legs, finding the sight of soaked red lace looking back at him. Scott reaches his hands beneath your dress, looping his fingers around either side of your panties. He looks to you for permission, and you give him a nod. "Okay." He breathes, pulling your underwear down your thighs and all the way to your ankles until they're removed entirely. He lets them fall to the floor, and then pushes the bottom of your dress up to expose your pussy. You lift your ass for a moment so he can tuck the material underneath you. Once you lay back down, he spreads your legs open wide. His eyes double, captivated by the glistening sight before him. He licks his lips involuntarily, suddenly feeling rather hungry. His lust-blown pupils flick to you. "You ready, honey?" He asks.

"Yes, baby. Make me feel good." You encourage him to have a taste, anticipation building in your core.

"I'll try my best." He crawls over to you, crouching over himself to position his face in front of your cunt. He admires it for a moment, your swollen bud, your pretty pink lips, and your slick, throbbing entrance. God, every last inch of her is beautiful. He decides to make a move, his tongue slipping out of his mouth to gently prod at your clit. The second he makes contact, your hips buck off the couch.

"Fuck." You moan, and it motivates him to keep going. He drags his tongue downwards, swiping through your silk. You let out another filthy sound, making his cock twitch. He slowly moves up and down along your pussy, savoring your sweet, musky flavor. He's never had anything like it, it's so unique...and addictive.

"Mmm." Scott hums as he continues to taste you, exploring every centimeter of your cunt.

"Feels so good, baby." You praise, unable to resist rolling your hips to meet his lazy strokes. Pleasure builds within you, slow and steady. That's another unique thing about Scott, he takes his time. But he does it in a way that's unbelievably enjoyable for you, making you savor every last bit just like he does. No one has ever managed to do that before, and certainly not in a way that brings you such intense ecstasy.

"You're so...sweet." Scott says between tentative licks, picking up his speed a little. He swirls purposeful circles around your bud, know that's the main spot he should be paying attention to.

"You like the way I taste?" You ask, lifting your head to look down at him between your thighs. His eyes meet yours, and you can see his thin tongue rolling against your soaked pussy. The sight pulls the knot inside you even tighter, knowing such a wholesome man is doing such a dirty thing to you.

"Yeah, I really do." He smiles, pressing himself further into you. His lips close around your swollen nub, sucking firmly.

"Oh my god." Your head falls back at the intense sensation, and your hands weave into Scott's hair to keep him close. You grind your hips a little more, unable to control yourself. He's making you feel so good, and it's only his first try. "You're doing such a good job, Scott. Fuck..." You trail off, eyes rolling back into your head as he brings two fingers to your tight entrance. He slips them in with ease, curling the knuckles to hit your g-spot.

"Mmm." Scott hums against you, making your thighs clench. Wet noises from his tongue and fingers pleasing your pussy fill the room, mingling with your breathy moans. His cock strains inside his slacks, growing more needy by the second. Your juices are like nectar to him, and those goddamn whimpers and cries of his name are driving him insane. He's afraid he might make a mess in his pants with how hot this whole scenario is. His free hand firmly grabs hold of your thigh, trying to keep you from squirming too much while he eats you out.

"Go a little faster, baby." You plead, needing just a bit more to really get going. Scott obliges your request, pumping his fingers quicker inside you, and sucking harder on your clit. "Yes...just like that." You smirk at his willingness to take your advice. He keeps it up, bringing you closer towards the edge. You moan and writhe and grind against his face, gripping his hair tightly in your hands. Sweat gathers in your underarms and the backs of your knees as he works you over. It won't take much longer for Scott to make you cum. He's managed to keep his speed and pressure completely consistent. "Don't stop, baby. I'm really close." You say breathlessly, lightly tugging on his hair.

"Mmm." He grunts against you, trying his best to not change a single thing about what he's doing. His eyes gaze up at you again, finding a beautiful, fucked-out mess waiting for him. Your head is pressed back into the cushion of the couch, your eyes fallen shut and your mouth making the prettiest noises. And he's the one that's made you unravel like this. He can't believe how well he's doing on his first attempt, and it's only turning him on more with every passing second.

"Oh god, I'm gonna cum..." You gasp as your high finally takes hold. "Scott!" You cry out his name, walls snapping around his fingers, trapping them inside. Your thighs tremble, and complete bliss rips its way through you from head to toe. A small dose of juices spills from you, making a mess of Scott's cheeks and chin. He groans at the warm fluid hitting his tongue, unexpectedly blowing his load inside his briefs. His hips stutter against nothing at all, his sticky release spurting out into the cotton fabric.

"Jesus." Scott pants as he pulls away from your spent pussy. He removes his fingers, leaving you completely fuckstruck on the couch. You try to catch your breath, still seeing stars. You feel his weight leave the sofa, drawing your eyes open.

"Where you goin', baby?" You ask, swallowing thickly.

"I just need to, um...change clothes." Scott says awkwardly, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Did I make that much of a mess?" You tease, looking him over. Your arousal is glistening on his mouth, and chin, even in his mustache. But there's nothing on his sweater, so it leaves you confused.

"No, no. I—" He starts to explain with a laugh, before cutting himself short. He snaps his mouth shut, completely sure you don't want to hear about his little mishap. But you just smile, giving him a knowing look. It certainly isn't the first time a guy has found going down on you particularly enjoyable.

You pull your dress back down over yourself, and stand up to comfort him. He's so ashamed of it, when he definitely shouldn't be. You put your hands on his shoulders, bringing yourself close to him. "It's okay, Scott. It happens. You were just enjoying yourself, that's nothing to be embarrassed about." You say in a reassuring tone.

"I suppose you're right. I just wasn't expecting it." He replies bashfully, his cheeks going bright red regardless of your kind words.

"If anything, I take it as a compliment. You liked pleasing me so much, that it made you feel just as good. What's wrong about that? Hm?" You add, hoping he'll see that there's nothing weird about him cumming like that.

"I know, I'm just being silly." He smiles, glad that you don't think any less of him for this. He's about to give you another heart-melting kiss, when the kitchen timer dings. "Oh, the roast is ready. Can you take it out of the oven for me? I'd like to get cleaned up."

"Of course, baby. I'm on it." You pat his chest, and head for the kitchen. You locate the mitts, and carefully remove the huge heavy pan from the oven. You set it on top of the stove, overwhelmed with the scent of tender, succulent meat. You're tempted to take the lid off and have a peak inside, but you're guessing Scott wants to present the meal to you himself. You leave the roast alone, and retrieve the wine glasses from the living room instead. You take a seat at his small dining table, finishing off your drink to quench your newfound thirst. Scott joins you at the table, his face clean of your juices, and his clothes set back straight. "Feelin' better now?" You ask cheekily.

"Very much. Would you like a refill, honey?" Scott smiles, reaching for your empty glass.

"Yes, please. And dinner smells delicious, I can't wait to try it." You reply, your stomach growling in agreement.

"Comin' right up." He leaves the room again, and you lean over to watch him move around the kitchen. He puts on a white apron to keep his clothes from getting messy while he slices up the meat. He really is a stickler for tidiness, but you like that about him. He has his routines, though he's already made several concessions for you. He doesn't usually have messy sex on the couch, or move about the house in the nude. But when it comes to you, he'd let all of his self-imposed rules go out the window if it would make you happy.

You find yourself feeling a little lonely, so you go to the kitchen to keep him company. "What's cookin', good lookin'?" You tease, finding him carving into the roast with a large knife and two-pronged fork.

"Got bored out there, huh?" Scott asks with a chuckle, glad for the company.

"Maybe." You say playfully, coming up behind him and wrapping your arms around his middle. You do your best to stay out of the way of his knife, and he sighs blissfully at your touch. You rest your head against his back, feeling unbelievably happy in this moment. He's your sweet, handsome man, preparing a delicious dinner for the both of you, on Christmas Eve. You'd be hard pressed to find anything that gets better than this.

Neither of you say anything else, just enjoying one another's presence in this cozy little house. Fresh snow falls outside, and Scott puts some Christmas music on the radio after setting dinner out nicely on the table. You sit down and eat together, not talking about much other than how delicious the food is. Your bellies are warm and full after dinner, leaving you both ready to take this to bed for the night. Scott leads you gently by the hand, and the two of you make love between his extremely comfortable sheets. It's passionate, and adoring, even loving, if one wants to be bold. Your mouths and hands wander all over each other, writhing and grinding your bodies together until you're left moaning one another's names and covered in sweat.

"Merry Christmas, Y/N." Scott coos, cupping your face in the post-orgasm afterglow.

"Merry Christmas, Scott." You say just as sweetly. You share a gentle kiss, before he pulls out and tosses his used condom away. He gets back into bed, pulling your body close to his. You nuzzle your head into his chest, humming with contentment.

"Can I tell you something?" Scott asks, sounding a little nervous again.

You lift your head up to meet his eyes, further confirming your suspicion. "You can tell me anything." You answer, wondering what's got him so anxious. Maybe he wants to ask you to officially be his girlfriend.

"Okay. Um, just know, you don't have to say it back. I-I know it's really early and everything..." Scott explains, his voice stuttering throughout. And that's when it clicks. You know exactly what three little words he's going to say. "But, uh, I really like you, Y/N. I mean—" He keeps trying to spit it out already, but he's seriously struggling. You decide to help him out. You give him another, deeper kiss. He melts into you, cupping your face to hold you close. After you've calmed him down, you slowly pull back.

You gaze deep into his eyes, cheerful tears pricking your own. "I love you too, Scott." You laugh through a happy sob, overcome with emotions.

"Really? You mean it?" He asks as his own eyes start to water, unable to believe you reciprocate these feelings so soon. He's had a hard time believing he feels this way for you, too. But he's far from an irrational man, he doesn't throw the 'L' word around willy-nilly. There's just something about you, that makes him want to hold his heart wide open and let you in entirely.

"Of course I do, baby." You tut. "Look, I'm sure you feel as crazy as I do saying it so early. But we get each other, on so many levels. And every time I've been with you, it's like I'm coming home. Like I finally have the one thing in life I've been missing." You say tearfully, ignoring the fact that the reason you feel this way is because he reminds you of someone else. But he doesn't need to know that. Because regardless of that fact, you still love Scott entirely as he is anyway. You promise yourself that one day, you'll tell him all about Bob. But it shouldn't be today.

"I feel exactly the same way, Y/N. I care about you so much. You make me feel like an entirely new person, the man I've always wanted to be. I love you, honey." He sniffles, a couple tears rolling down his cheeks. He pulls you in for more heated kisses, unable to get enough of your adoring lips.

...we kept kissing for what felt like hours. And when we eventually became too tired to keep going, Scott held me close in his arms and stroked my hair untilI fell asleep. We slept in late, and had leftovers from last night once we managed to get out of bed. We spent the entire day together, cuddling on his sofa, and talking aboutanything that came to mind. He even made us some hot cocoa, and I repayed him for going down on me. Scott seemed to enjoy that, he said nobody else has ever done that before. It appears I'm pulling many firsts out of him, and every one makes me feel like it's my first time too. I think now Iunderstand what Madonna's "Like A Virgin" was talking about.

January 1st, 1985

Dear diary,

Happy new year! Sorry, I'm still a little tipsy from last night. Scott came over to my place this time, and we had lots of champagne and crappy snacks to ring in the new year together. We watched the ball drop, and our special midnight kiss quickly turned into the best drunk sex I've ever had. It was hot, and heavy, and a little rougher than we've been before. It was perfect, though my head pounding this morning has me wondering if I should swear off booze altogether.

Scott's still passed out in bed, snoring loudly with his limbs splayed about. I hope he won't be too upset at me for letting him sleep so late. He's usually quite the early bird. But Ican't possibly disturb him like this, he's so cute when he's sleeping. He's so peaceful, especially when his arms are wrapped around me. And the way his hair gets all messy throughout the night is so damn charming. I love watching him sit up in bed, rubbing his eyes while a scraggly black birds nest sits atop his head. It makes me giggle every time, even though he hates it.

January 4th, 1985

Dear diary,

Winter break is officially over, which means I'll have to get used to sharing Scott with Hawkins Middle. I absolutely hate the idea of that, but I know his job is important. He loves those kids, and he loves sharing the wonders of science with them. And I'm sure those kids adore him, too. How can they not? He's kind, and sweet, and unbelievably smart. I don't think I could find one person that doesn't like him if I tried.

In other news, it appears construction of the new Starcourt Mall is beginning. I have no interest in going there once it's open, except maybe to scope out the competition. From what I've heard, the building is going to be massive, one of the largest structures Hawkins has ever seen. I can't say I'm not a little nervous about it killing the small businesses in town once it's finished. They're building it pretty quickly, too. Everyone keeps talking about how much progress is finished with every passing day, though I haven't looked for myself yet. It's a little out of the way, and I'm not sure I even want to look.

January 12th, 1985

Dear diary,

I told Scott about Bob today. I hadn't meant to just yet. But I guess Scott was still curious as to why I was so upset during our first night together. I decided to be honest with him, I don't want there to be any secrets between us. I told him that Bob and I used to go out, and it got pretty serious. I told him we broke up due to our work monopolizing all of our time, and then Bob started dating Joyce Byers. I told him that I had gotten over Bob, until the accident at the Lab happened. I told him that, despite having been apart for so long, Bob's death hit me really hard. I told him that I was upset on our first night because I was afraid of us not working out. Afraid of losing someone I care about again. And that, in a way, I felt like I was dishonoring Bob's memory by being with someone else.

Scott completely understood. He told me he'd attended the funeral, since they used to be close friends back in their school days. They'd always meant to reconnect when Bob came back to Hawkins, but it never ended up happening. So after Bob's passing, Scott felt guilty for never making time to see his old friend. We comforted each other for a while after that, sharing stories of happy memories that the both of us made with him. It was a surprisingly cathartic, mature conversation. We cried, and laughed, and held each other close through all of it.

I have to admit, I was a little afraid of losing Scott altogether after telling him everything. I was so scared that he'd feel used or something, not that I've actually been using him. I just mean that, I initially saw something in Scott that I used to see in Bob. So it was like I was getting him back, while also mourning him and moving on at the same time. Ugh, I don't know if that even makes sense. I hope it does. Because now, I feel like I'm actually able to be happy for an extended period of time. Possibly even forever.

January 18th, 1985

Dear diary,

Scott took me out on a very sweet date tonight. We went for a walk around the park, bundled up snugly in our coats and hats and mittens, watching the snow fall from the sky to the glittering blankets of white on the ground. Scott cleared off a bench under one of the streetlamps, and we sat together and drank some hot spiked cider he'd brought in a thermos. The air may have been nipping our noses pretty hard, but sitting with him in the quiet night was wonderful. It was so simple, and also absolutely perfect.

February 14th, 1985

Dear diary,

Love is in the air. The snow is beginning to melt, the shop is running smoothly, and Scott and I are stronger than ever. We've both been rather busy, but that's to be expected. We still find plenty of time for one another, spending as much of every weekend together as possible. Speaking of which, we'll actually be celebrating Valentine's Day tomorrow. Scott still popped by to give me a cute teddy bear and some chocolates during his lunch break, which was so sweet of him to do. He was even wearing a red sweater vest with little hearts on it, he was looking handsome as ever. It took everything in me not to drag him behind the counter and get on my knees. But there will be plenty of time for that tomorrow.

February 16th, 1985

Dear diary,

Yesterday was, in one word, fantastic. Scott whisked me away from the store once he was finished with work, I left the younglings in charge for the night. We made a quick stop to my apartment so I could change clothes, he told me to wear 'something nice'. I wore a cute little black dress, and some extra special lingerie I'd picked up from The Love Hut in preparation for this occasion. Scott took me to Enzo's for dinner, that yuppie Italian place. The food was amazing, and Scott gave me these gorgeous diamond earrings. I'd never expected something so extravagant, but they have to be the prettiest piece of jewelry I own.

After dinner, we went back to his house to watch a movie. He'd rented Heartbeeps from Family Video. It was meant to be a silly sci-fi romantic comedy about two robots who fall in love or something. But, ugh, it was absolutely horrible! Scott and I spent the whole time making fun of the terrible dialogue and special effects. He thoroughly apologized once it was finally over, but all I could do was laugh. It's not his fault, the premise itself didn't seem all that bad. But let's just say that Andy Kaufman should stick to his usual record player routine.

Once we got over the awfulness of the film, we shared some ice cream and went to bed. I 'unwrapped' Scott's present, standing at the foot of his bed in a red babydoll with faux-feather trim and a matching thong. His jaw nearly fell through the floor when he saw it, and he was on me in seconds. I've never seen him so ravenous before, but he's grown far more confident in the bedroom department as of late. We went at it for at least a couple of rounds, having to change the sheets once we finished. Scott didn't want to stop making me cum, and I let him devour me until I truly couldn't take another orgasm. I'm not saying he's lost that caring tenderness, mind you. Far from it. Every kiss, touch, and thrust is still tied up in silk ribbons of love and adoration. And it leaves me a total love-drunk mess every time.

March 21st, 1985

Dear Diary,

Well, it's official. I'm single again. It definitely wasn't by choice. But regardless, I'm once again left alone in this world. It's not Scott's fault, truly. We've been happier than ever, soit's nothing wrong with our relationship either. It's something entirely out of our control. Scott's aunt Sylvia is sick, like, 'a couple months left to live' kind of sick. Her husband died a long time ago, and they had no children of their own. Scott is the closest one to her, so it's been decided by him and the rest of the Clarke family that he has to go to Idaho to keep her comfortable until she passes away.

I begged him to let me go along, but he said I would hate it.  He claims Idaho has even less to do in it than Indiana, and Sylvia's condition makes her delirious and prone to violent outbursts. He doesn't want me to see that, despite my insistence that I could handle it. It kind of turned into a bit of an argument, actually. But we couldn'tpossiblystay upset at one another for long. We love each other far too much to keep shouting the way other couples do.

He said it would only be for a few months, and that once he returns, we could pick things up again. But all I could think about was where I'd heard that before. I don't want him to leave, diary. I don't want to stop watching stupid movies, or taking long walks together, or cuddling in our beds after making the sweetest love we've ever had. I don't want to sit here in this stupid fucking town waiting for him to come back. It's not fair! Don't I deserve to be happy, diary? I work hard, I take care of myself, I don't do bad things. Have I not earned just a little bit of happiness? Must I always get fucked over by life?

At this point, all I can do is cry and be angry. I've been out of the shop for the last few days, and Scott's going to come by tonight to say his final good-bye before heading out on the road. On what would have been our three-month anniversary. I wish I could convince him to stay, or bring me along. But he won't hear any of it. He doesn't want to put me out, or disappoint his family. This fucking sucks, diary. I can't take losing the man I love again. I can't bear the burden of caring so deeply for someone, only to have them be taken away from me. Once we share that last kiss, once Scott gets in his car and drives away, I'm done with love. For good.

[hk-chinanews]

Ex-Southend teacher Jonathan Ullmer stripped of MBE

A disgraced former Southend teacher has been stripped of his MBE four years after he was handed a lifetime ban from teaching in England over accusations he engaged in sexual activity with a boy.

Jonathan Ullmer, who taught at Cecil Jones High School in Southend between 1989 and 2002, was banned from all classrooms in England in 2019 after an education conduct panel ruled he engaged in historic sexual activity with, and in front of, a male pupil.

Ullmer, 62, denied the claims and there have been no criminal charges since. However, the professional conduct panel ruled, on the balance of probabilities, he did engage in the acts and his conduct was sexually motivated.

Now, four years later, Ullmer has been stripped of his MBE by King Charles III, which he received from Prince William in 2014 for his services to education.

He is named among a list of people stripped of their honours, published by the Cabinet Office, which gave the reason for Ullmer's forfeiture as professional disbarment.

Mr Ullmer told the Echo: "I am saddened by these singular false allegations made against me and strongly refute them. I remain grateful to the many staff students and friends who continue to stand with me."

Specific details of what Ullmer did have not been included to protect the identity of the alleged victim.

After the conduct panel, Alan Meyrick, on behalf of the education secretary, stated: “I have concluded that a prohibition order is as the panel say, 'not only proportionate and appropriate, but essential' and in the public interest in order to achieve the intended aims of a prohibition order.”

He concluded at the time: “Ullmer is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Furthermore, in view of the seriousness of the allegations, I have decided that Jonathan Ullmer shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.”

[uktimewsnow]

Ex-Southend teacher Jonathan Ullmer stripped of MBE

A disgraced former Southend teacher has been stripped of his MBE four years after he was handed a lifetime ban from teaching in England over accusations he engaged in sexual activity with a boy.

Jonathan Ullmer, who taught at Cecil Jones High School in Southend between 1989 and 2002, was banned from all classrooms in England in 2019 after an education conduct panel ruled he engaged in historic sexual activity with, and in front of, a male pupil.

Ullmer, 62, denied the claims and there have been no criminal charges since. However, the professional conduct panel ruled, on the balance of probabilities, he did engage in the acts and his conduct was sexually motivated.

Now, four years later, Ullmer has been stripped of his MBE by King Charles III, which he received from Prince William in 2014 for his services to education.

He is named among a list of people stripped of their honours, published by the Cabinet Office, which gave the reason for Ullmer's forfeiture as professional disbarment.

"I am saddened by these singular false allegations made against me and strongly refute them. I remain grateful to the many staff students and friends who continue to stand with me."

Specific details of what Ullmer did have not been included to protect the identity of the alleged victim.

After the conduct panel, Alan Meyrick, on behalf of the education secretary, stated: “I have concluded that a prohibition order is as the panel say, 'not only proportionate and appropriate, but essential' and in the public interest in order to achieve the intended aims of a prohibition order.”

He concluded at the time: “Ullmer is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Furthermore, in view of the seriousness of the allegations, I have decided that Jonathan Ullmer shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.”

Author: Jacob Geller

Email: gellerjacob68@gmail.com

[europetimes]

Ex-Southend teacher Jonathan Ullmer stripped of MBE

A disgraced former Southend teacher has been stripped of his MBE four years after he was handed a lifetime ban from teaching in England over accusations he engaged in sexual activity with a boy.

Jonathan Ullmer, who taught at Cecil Jones High School in Southend between 1989 and 2002, was banned from all classrooms in England in 2019 after an education conduct panel ruled he engaged in historic sexual activity with, and in front of, a male pupil.

Ullmer, 62, denied the claims and there have been no criminal charges since. However, the professional conduct panel ruled, on the balance of probabilities, he did engage in the acts and his conduct was sexually motivated.

Now, four years later, Ullmer has been stripped of his MBE by King Charles III, which he received from Prince William in 2014 for his services to education.

He is named among a list of people stripped of their honours, published by the Cabinet Office, which gave the reason for Ullmer's forfeiture as professional disbarment.

Mr Ullmer told the Echo: "I am saddened by these singular false allegations made against me and strongly refute them. I remain grateful to the many staff students and friends who continue to stand with me."

Specific details of what Ullmer did have not been included to protect the identity of the alleged victim.

After the conduct panel, Alan Meyrick, on behalf of the education secretary, stated: “I have concluded that a prohibition order is as the panel say, 'not only proportionate and appropriate, but essential' and in the public interest in order to achieve the intended aims of a prohibition order.”

He concluded at the time: “Ullmer is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children’s home in England. Furthermore, in view of the seriousness of the allegations, I have decided that Jonathan Ullmer shall not be entitled to apply for restoration of his eligibility to teach.”

If you have any query regarding this news, contact via: jodelalessio@gmail.com

[hislittleraincloud]

Well, I mean. The Miller's Girl community (which includes the Martin Freemaniacs) is obvs more welcoming to their pairing since it's just natural canon that everyone can see (and I'm sure more are comfortable with their ages).

Like I may have mentioned somewhere (maybe I didn't, might still be in my drafts), Cairo is the same age as Wednesday. If she was 18 in the Fall of 2023, she was born in 2005 (but if the movie takes place this year/upon its release, then she was born in 2006). I think people forget that in real time, Wednesday is turning 18 this year. 💀 Wednesday is also more advanced than Cairo, generally.

Sigh. I just looked up to the loop and it's her first intimate scene with Donovan. ("Actually, I'd like to speak to Sheriff Galpin...alone.") Ortega spoke so softly with McShane. It's so...charged. I'm so bereft that he's been demoted to a guest starring role, but I guess they're probably going with Sheriff Santiago after Donovan steps down due to his involvement with hiding the truth about Francie and Tyler (which...is pretty much where AtB was going, only slower). We need to see Sheriff Galpin's scars over that. They don't have to be physical. But alas.

Wenovan is still a true pairing for me, but Jairo is tied right next to it. Two old bastards with two unruly teenagers. THAT'S ALWAYS FUN. 💀💀💀💀💀

I hate that there aren't any Donovan .gifs that aren't defiled by subtitles/words. Wenovan deserves more.

Maybe it's that it's harder to wrap minds around the idea that a Very Weird™ and hypersexual 16yo would want someone (much) old/er. But that's the point. Wednesday is Very Fucking Weird™ in comparison to her peers. She IS that rare individual (much like Cairo), that "not like other girls" girl, she's far above average. I just took what was already there and amplified it into Afterburn Wednesday.

Still kinda weirded out that Miller's Girl was basically the ABW/Fortunato situation in less more than 1500 words. And I wanna know which one of you little trolls voted for it. 💩 Man, I do wonder what would've happened if Mrs. Murphy (wow, I JUST now realized that she has the same name as Jon's proxy in Cairo's story 💀💀💀💀💀) hadn't walked in on them. I think maybe she would've gotten as far as beard petting. Maybe some handiwork, too (by both).

But ultimately ABW would not have slept with Mr. Fortunato. Fool around, maybe, but she wouldn't have lost her V-Card on him. He may have been handsome and knowledgeable about English, but he's otherwise kind of uninteresting to ABW (! Right? You would think that an AP English prof would be...well, like Jonathan Miller). He's pretty and he knows his stuff, but there was nothing else in common. And he's closeted. 🙊 Married to a woman, has two young children, but totally 🏳️‍🌈. No one at Sacred Heart knew/knows, or even suspects. He likes musicals, and ABW despises them (once when he was going off about Hamilton — after that bitch Ryleigh brought it up — she excused herself from class claiming bathroom needs and didn't come back until the bell rang to pick up her bag). I think if they had gotten to talking about anything other than English, she'd catch on quickly. If he's 🏳️‍🌈, why the flustering over ABW? Because he's still human. Gay men can still be aroused by and have sex with women, and ABW had turned up the heat real high with the recitation of her 'favorite' passage from Lolita (which is merely a poetic description of the sex between Humbert and Dolores). Wow, so while Cairo prefers Henry Miller, ABW prefers Vladimir Nabokov...which is fitting, considering that Wednesday (15, though she was 14 when she started the class) was a bit younger than Cairo (18) was at their teacher crush points. But it is interesting to note that Nabokov's style is much more grandiloquent than Miller's brash smut; one is a glass of white wine, the other a splash of Everclear, both the alcohol of onanism...the younger's younger choice being more sophisticated in terms of language. But as usual when I'm fkn high, I digress. TLDR; ABW wouldn't have fucked Fortunato. And he escaped the inquiry with his job, though he got suspended for a week while it was happening.

As for Jairo, the clear winner...I don't have much to say unless I'm expressing it through the fiction because oh mah God, UVC Jairo are the cutest goddamn couple ever and I like imagining them both happy and having fun...well, for now. It can't all be peace and tranquility. Jon best buckle in! 👹👹👹👹👹

[lenbryant]

Sondheim (from 2021) LONG POST

Cherished Words From Theater’s Encourager-in-Chief

He wrote great shows, but Stephen Sondheim was also a mentor, a teacher and an audience regular. And, oh, the thrill of getting one of his typewritten notes.

In the fictionalized movie version of his life, Jonathan Larson ignores the ringing phone and lets the answering machine pick up. Crouched on the bare wooden floor of his shabby apartment in 1990 New York City, he listens as Stephen Sondheim leaves a message — instant balm to his battered artist’s soul.

“Jon? Steve Sondheim here,” the voice says in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s biomusical “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” and it really is Sondheim’s voice we hear, offering a bit of badly needed praise for the prodigiously talented, profoundly discouraged Larson.

Sondheim scripted that voice mail for the film himself, and goodness knows he’d had decades of practice, offering just the right words to buoy the spirits of Larson and countless other young artists. When Sondheim died on Nov. 26 at 91, the American stage lost not only a composer and lyricist nonpareil but also its longtime encourager-in-chief.

The story of his own early tutelage under Oscar Hammerstein II has been told and retold, but much less known — at least outside professional theater — is the rigorous dedication with which Sondheim passed that tradition on.

Miranda, who first met Sondheim at 17 and began corresponding with him in earnest while writing “Hamilton,” said he was initially afraid of intruding on Sondheim’s time.

“It took me a while to realize he was serious when he said, ‘Reach out if you ever want to talk about anything,’” Miranda said.

The letters Sondheim wrote over the decades were so numerous that they might seem cheap currency if they weren’t so powerfully affecting to the recipients. Imagine the hand of God reaching toward Adam in Michelangelo’s fresco and you have some idea of the vital charge they could carry.

After Sondheim died, Twitter was flooded with images of them. Notes to students and professionals and fans, they were thoughtful and specific, full of gratitude and good wishes, each on letterhead, each with the elegant, sloping signature that’s familiar now from the Stephen Sondheim Theater marquee.

“He was always concerned about the future of the art form, and he wanted it to survive,” said the director Lonny Price, who played one of the leads in the original Broadway production of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” More than three decades later, he directed the documentary “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” about the making of that show, a notorious flop.

But it was as a Sondheim-obsessed 14-year-old in 1973 that he struck up a decades-long correspondence with his hero, and discovered that Sondheim was kind enough to take him seriously.

‘You make me want to write more’

Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld of Fiasco Theater got a cherished letter from Sondheim in 2013, after he saw their company’s production of “Into the Woods.” Declaring it “inventive and exhilarating,” he ended with a breathtaking line: “You make me want to write more.”

“It was the most important thing that’s ever happened in our professional lives,” Steinfeld said, calling it “unspeakably meaningful” to learn “that the cycle of inspiration might have actually flowed in the other direction.”

SONDHEIM CULTIVATED the field by founding the Young Playwrights Festival, where the theater and television writer Zakiyyah Alexander recalls him having “a proud dad vibe” about her and the other teenage winners. Elsewhere he championed emerging composer-lyricists like Larson and Miranda and Dave Malloy. For years, he was the president of the Dramatists Guild Council.

Revered as the closest thing we had to a theatrical deity, Sondheim didn’t retreat to reign alone on some Olympus. He ambled down from the mountaintop fully aware of the power and responsibility that came with his position. 

And so it was immensely moving, but utterly unsurprising, that he spent his last day of theatergoing, two days before he died, taking in a pair of form-bending documentary plays that were struggling at the Broadway box office and about to close: a matinee of “Is This a Room” and an evening performance of “Dana H.,” both at the Lyceum Theater.

He had told a New York Times journalist his plan, and after he died, Michael Paulson reported what he had said in anticipation: “I can smell both of those and how much I’m going to love them.”

To Emily Davis, the star of “Is This a Room,” the fact of Sondheim having been there — which she said she learned about only when she read it in the newspaper — felt like “the biggest and most grand actual welcome to Broadway that there could have been.”

And when she noticed, the day after his death, an unusually large number of audience members doing doubleheaders — spending their Saturday catching both plays — it seemed to her like people paying tribute to him by doing as he had done.

Children will listen. He got that right.

‘Forgive me’

The composer Jeanine Tesori, who spent many hours alongside Sondheim as the supervising vocal producer on the new “West Side Story” movie, got her first letter from him in the 1980s, when she was just out of college. To her retrospective mortification, she had mailed him some music she’d written.

“That’s what we all did,” she said. “We just cold sent him our stuff because we didn’t know not to do that: send a cassette, and then you would just sort of wait and hope.”

He wrote back, gently, apologizing that he had been unable to listen to her tape — and somehow even that felt like a kind of validation, because he had noticed she was there.

“The beautiful thing was, it didn’t go into the ether,” she said. “He could have easily ignored it. But what he did was acknowledge that he had gotten it, and he returned it. I’ll never forget those words, typewritten: ‘Forgive me.’”

TO A LEGION OF FANS Sondheim was and is the be-all and end-all. But his own horizons as a theatergoer were significantly broader than that. In an art form that is so much about being present for the unrepeatable moment, he not only showed up, but he also often did so to experience work that was offbeat and obscure, challenging conventions just as his own work did.

When the Chicago-based experimental shadow-puppetry troupe Manual Cinema brought “Ada/Ava” to New York in 2015, Sondheim headed downtown to see what they were up to — “the ultimate pinch-me moment,” said Ben Kauffman, one of the company’s composers.

When Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers performed their loopy Matt Damon-Ben Affleck sendup “Matt & Ben” at P.S. 122 in 2003, Sondheim went backstage afterward to celebrate its unknown, 20-something playwright-stars.

Kaling tweeted last weekend that she’d told him she hoped someday to star in one of his shows; Withers, by phone, recalled his grace in focusing the encounter on them, not him.

“He made the effort to stay and talk to us and see our eyes get wide and let us ask him a couple questions,” she said. “He wasn’t there because his publicist told him to be there, and to be nice. He was there because he wanted to be.”

But Sondheim, far too famous simply to blend into an audience, was cautious about making such appearances. Jason Eagan, the artistic director of the artist incubator Ars Nova, said that Sondheim went to shows there but never to openings, because he didn’t want to be a distraction on someone else’s big night.

And while there was nowhere for him to hide when he first saw the immersive “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” at Ars Nova’s tiny space in Hell’s Kitchen, when he went to see it on Broadway, he sat in the mezzanine to be as inconspicuous as possible.

However much that theatergoing nourished him, as it nourishes all of us when the work is good, it was also frequently an obligation, and he fulfilled it diligently. Tesori remembers him showing up at City Center just after his close friend, the author and composer Mary Rodgers, died in 2014.

He had promised that he would listen to some young artists perform his music, so he did — “even though he was heartbroken,” Tesori said. He asked her to give him the performers’ addresses, “because he wanted to write to all of them, to encourage them.”

‘Why I wanted to write for the theater’

The playwright Lynn Nottage, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was returning to the theater after a seven-year absence when Sondheim wrote to her out of the blue in 2004, praising her new play “Intimate Apparel” and telling her: “It reminded me of why I wanted to write for the theater in the first place.”

“I entered back into New York theater sort of tiptoeing and frightened and not sure whether there was a space for me,” Nottage said. “And so when I received this letter from one of the giants, it just was the kind of affirmation that I needed in the moment. What it said to me more than anything is that I belong in this community.”

From then on, at all of her plays, she said, “at some point I’d look out in the audience, and there he would be.”

SONDHEIM’S LETTERS generally weren’t long, but it’s the little things, right? Except that the little things combine to eat up who knows how many hours of a life. And even when a genius lives to 91, it’s easy to lament — as Miranda recently did, in an interview in The New Yorker — the works that went uncreated because of finite energies expended elsewhere.

Over the phone a few days after Sondheim’s death, though, Miranda said he didn’t truly feel that way.

“Obviously it’s to theater’s enormous benefit that he took that time, and I think it fed him to encourage others,” he said. “He succeeded on both fronts because he left a legacy of immortal works that we’ll be doing forever — I mean, just look at this season alone — and he also left behind a generation of artists who got encouragement from him, and support.”

It was part of Sondheim’s gift to understand not only the encompassing job description of great artist but also his singular effect on his colleagues — how even a few words of appreciation, or moments of attention, could prove enduring sustenance over the long slog of a career in an often pitiless field.

It was unglamorous work, and Sondheim did it exquisitely.

No single theater artist right now is as revered as he was. No one else can yet step into those shoes. We nonetheless could, artists and audience members alike, seek to borrow from his example — by being adventurous, by being generous, by showing up.

That would be one way to honor the giant.

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 5, 2021, Section AR, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Cherished Words From the ‘Encourager in Chief’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[albertfinch]

WHERE ARE WE EQUIPPING THE SAINTS?

 "Now NO BLACKSMITH COULD BE FOUND in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, 'Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears.' So all Israel went down to the Philistines, each to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, and his hoe. The charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to fix the hoes. So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan ......." (1 Samuel 13:16-23)

"'Behold, I Myself have created the SMITH who blows the fire of coals and brings out a weapon for its work; and I have created the destroyer to ruin. No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn....." (Isaiah 54:16-17)

We need the spiritual blacksmiths (TEACHERS in the body of Christ -- see Ephesians 4:11) to rise up and be strengthened because the enemy seeks to remove the weapons of our warfare. When there is a fire of the Holy Spirit, the blacksmiths will forge the raw material of God's Word into powerful weapons, which shape and mold His people into His image, equipping them for spiritual warfare. Although the enemy is constantly attacking the Word of God, we know that the Word is a double edged sword, and God is going to use that sword to overcome the enemy.

We need sons/daughters (who understand God's purpose for their life) to be equipped for battle, today! It's one thing to demonstrate God's power...it's another thing altogether to equip the saints to disciple believers into their Christ identity and minister in the power of God.

The Lord is looking for those who will be constantly confessing and meditating on the Word of God; those who are willing to get dirty, hot and sweaty from the intensity of The Blacksmith's fire. God's Word has to be put into the hands of those who will take the sword (and make it Rhema to their spirit) and learn how to wield it to advance God's Kingdom in the earth. Our prayers have to be in agreement with His Word, as our battle plans and our worship must be the strategy to our victory.

ALBERT FINCH MINISTRY

[college-girl199328]

In the space of a week, a leaked recording of a phone call between Smith and a Calgary pastor facing pandemic-related charges has raised questions about the premier's judgment, two senior members of Smith's cabinet said they would not be running for re-election in May, and a UCP candidate resigned after accusing teachers of exposing kids to pornography. Polls show Alberta's election, scheduled to take place no later than May 29, will be a tight two-way race between the UCP and the left-leaning New Democratic Party, led by Rachel Notley.

The series of events, of which Smith's phone call with controversial street pastor Artur Pawlowski is the most serious, may damage her standing among moderate conservatives and undecided voters in key election battlegrounds like Alberta's corporate oil capital Calgary, said Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University. "I think it will make a difference (to voters); it's going to keep coming up," Bratt said of the recording. "It's going to be reluctant conservatives in Calgary who are concerned about the judgment and trustworthiness of Premier Smith, and this adds to questions about that."

Pawlowski is facing charges related to COVID-19 protests in Canada last year, which included a weeks-long blockade of the Coutts border crossing in southern Alberta. A verdict is expected in early May. In the 11-minute phone call released on Wednesday by the NDP, Smith expressed sympathy with Pawlowski's situation and said she would ask justice department officials about the case again. Critics, including the NDP, say it is inappropriate for the premier to discuss individual cases in the justice system with officials.

Smith denies any wrongdoing. In a statement, the premier said she had her staff work with the Ministry of Justice to determine if anything could be done to grant amnesty for people charged with non-violent, non-firearms COVID-related charges and followed their advice when they recommended dropping the matter. Smith became UCP leader and premier last October, replacing Jason Kenney, by appealing to grassroots UCP members in the traditionally conservative province. But some political analysts have said the UCP's rightward shift risks alienating more moderate voters.

Last week's controversies come just days after two senior Alberta government ministers, Finance Minister Travis Toews and Environment Minister Sonya Savage, said they would not seek re-election. Their departures will deplete the strength of Smith's cabinet, should she win in May. Savage's retirement from front-line politics may also hamper collaboration between the Alberta and federal governments over climate policies.

"I think it's a loss for Alberta, and I think it's a loss for Canada; she was a very effective minister," federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told reporters on Thursday.

[thoughtportal]

undefined

The Strange Case of Lance Hindt Jonathan Bailey February 4, 2020 https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2020/02/04/the-strange-case-of-lance-hindt/

In July 2016, Lance Hindt was appointed to a 5-year term as superintendent of the Katy Independent School District (ISD). It was a triumphant moment for Hindt, one that saw him come back to his hometown to head one of the largest school districts in Texas.

He began the job on October 1st and, by most accounts, his tenure was reasonably successful. He backed teacher pay raises and even drafted a $609 million bond package that won over voter approval.

However, his career took a sharp turn on March 19, 2018. On that day, during an otherwise routine school board meeting, a former classmate of Hindt, Gregory Gay, took to the podium and accused Hindt of bullying him during their time junior high school together.

Hindt was seen chuckling at the allegations, which helped cause the video of the accusations to go viral and become national news, despite the allegations being nearly 40 years old.

Hindt, for his part, denied the allegations but others came forward, including an Alabama judge, to accuse Hindt of having a bullying past. There was even a lawsuit that accused Hindt of beating a man unconscious when he was 18. The case was settled without criminal charges.

But in the midst of the bullying allegations, a new set of accusations rose to the surface. Sean Dolan, himself a former Katy ISD student and parent of children in the district, noted on his blog, A Better Legacy, similarities between Hindt’s 2012 dissertation from the University of Houston and a 2008 dissertation by Keith Rowland at Liberty University.

However, shortly after the allegations were launched, Hindt announced his resignation from the position, which took effect on January 1, 2019. According to Hindt, he and his family were the victims of an “Organized and relentless and dishonest smear campaign,” and he needed to step away for his family’s sake.

But, while his resignation announcement was met with literal cheers, what happened after added a new layer of controversy to Hindt’s story. First, the school board set aside some $25,000 to be used in a potential defamation lawsuit filed on Hindt’s behalf. Second, they gave him a two-year separation payment, estimated to be worth $750,000.

This angered many, who wondered why taxpayer money was being used to provide him approximately two years worth of salary and legal aid after he resigned. According to Dolan, the severance also resulted in a $350,000 penalty on the district issued by the state.

However, after that resignation, things went quiet. The University of Houston continued its plagiarism investigation and, in January of this year, removed the dissertation from their site. The university has not commented publicly on the reason for the removal nor whether any other action has been taken against Hindt, but the policy of the university only allows for such removals to happen under special circumstances, “including copyright violations, plagiarism or falsification of data.”

For Dolan, who has not been sued so far, this was a vindication. While it likely brings the story to a close, it is an ending that leaves more questions than answers and more problems than solutions.

The Bizarre Element

What makes the Lance Hindt case so unusual is not the allegations against him. Neither the bullying allegations nor the plagiarism allegations are, by themselves, unusual. Many people in prominent positions face allegations of a checkered past and even accusations of plagiarism in dissertations are remarkably common.

What is unusual in this case is the response by both Hindt and the Katy ISD. With both allegations, Hindt and the Katy ISD never really took the allegations seriously. Though Hindt did eventually apologize for his bullying past and admit to being a young man that “did dumb things”, that came out after details surrounding the lawsuit emerged.

Looking back to the plagiarism element, Hindt has always denied committing any plagiarism, even after Dolan and others pointed at significant portions of overlapping text. Even now, with the removal of his dissertation, he had not admitted to issues with his work and has stayed silent since the latest news.

But what is even more bizarre is the support from the Katy ISD. The school board never wavered from their support for Hindt and never seriously investigated any of the allegations against him.

At least some teachers in the district were similar, even holding a rally for him after a school board meeting.

Why this was the case is anyone’s guess. Hindt was largely responsible for a major bond referendum that brought in $609 million to the district and also helped increase teacher pay. However, even that doesn’t explain the complete lack of curiosity about the allegations.

Judging from the extensive news coverage, no one at Katy ISD investigated or even sought to significantly address the allegations. This may have ultimately harmed Hindt, who could have benefited from an impartial and transparent investigation that showed both he and the Katy ISD were taking the issues seriously.

However, it’s also a missed opportunity in other ways. One of the major criticisms of Hindt has been his handling of bullying at the Katy ISD. When revelations about his own past came out, he had an opportunity to talk openly about it, discuss what he had learned from it, why he changed and how it was going to apply those lessons to his duties.

Likewise, with the plagiarism allegations, there was an opportunity to show that the Katy ISD takes academic integrity seriously, investigate the claims independently and show students that these issues are significant. They missed that opportunity as well.

By rushing to his defense, the board and educators at the Katy ISD not only may have hastened his resignation by throwing gasoline on the firestorm around him, but they also missed some great opportunities to actually teach the students under their charge.

Bottom Line

To be clear, the major critics of Hindt do have at least a degree of personal animosity against him. However, that doesn’t mean that he’s the victim of a smear campaign. To find that out, one has to look at the facts.

The facts seem to indicate that he is, at the very least, problematic in these areas. The lawsuit against him and the removal of his dissertation don’t necessarily prove that he was a horrible person or a rampant plagiarist, but they hint that there were issues in his past. These are issues that Hindt and the Katy ISD ignored and denied.

By not confronting these issues openly, directly and transparently, Hindt and the Katy ISD made things much worse. That’s true not just for Hindt, but for the students in the district.

And that, in turn, is what is strange about this story. That what was best for the students was never really addressed. The board and at least some of the district’s teachers rushed to protect Hindt without really addressing the issues behind the controversies.

In doing so, they missed some great opportunities to turn this controversy into something positive and only harmed everyone involved.

[goggles-mcgee]

FUCK FREUD CLUB SHENANIGANS because I didn't think people would enjoy my little idea so much and I have more to share!

• Harley who may have been drinking a bit: "I gotta admit Brucie babe, I, like many of our classmates, had a little crush on you!"

Jonathan who was getting more comfortable without wearing his Scarecrow hood, also who has been drinking too: "Confession, I also had a crush on you Wayne."

Bruce, now blushing and wondering if he made the Sangria too strong for this week's club meeting: "Well I'm flattered. If we're being honest here, I did have a crush on you Crane after you went off on Professor Kingsley when he said Freud was a genius."

Jonathan, now also slightly blushing: "Stop Mister Wayne or the media will somehow get wind of that and it'll be the new scandal."

Harley: "Speaking of scandal! Have you guys heard about the latest fight Pengy and Riddler had? I heard they legit got into a fight in front of the Bat!"

Sometimes their club meetings turns into gossip sharing.

• Harley bursting into Bruce's Study with Jonathan right behind her: "You're being played by George Clooney!?"

Jonathan: "You agreed to be the secret identity of Batman!?"

Bruce who was plotting Jason's second funeral and Tim's first: "My son's forged my signature on those papers. Then the other's heard about it and got so excited and I couldn't back out! Especially after Cass made me a card! She made me a card!"

Harley: "Pushover."

Jonathan: "People pleaser."

Bruce with his head in his hands: "Arnold Schwarzenegger is Mr. Freeze....Uma Thurman is Poison Ivy....Should I be worried that they'll attack me more after the movie?"

Harley now super excited: "They're in the movie!?"

• Jonathan standing next to a white board as he hosts this week's club meeting: "Today's club meeting will start off with our absolute favorite thing we hate about Freud. After that Harley has designed a Family Feud style game where Bruce, you and I will go against each other and guess Freud's stupidest idea's and studies based off Harley's questions. Winner takes home the homemade Fuck Freud Trophy which is a golden hand giving off the middle finger."

Bruce and Harley lifting up their hands in unison and solemnly flipping off a picture of Freud: "Fuck Freud."

• Bruce being held "hostage" by Two-Face before looking at the clock: "Oh shit. Harv? Can we like, reschedule this? I have a club meeting and I'm in charge of snacks this week."

Two-Face: "You...want to reschedule a hostage situation? For a club?"

Bruce, completely serious: "Yes."

• Harley got them Letterman jackets for the club, of course personalized. Jon even got them mugs for the club. Bruce caved and got them pens and pins made for the club.

His kids do not understand why he goes along with the club but they have also never seen their dad so normal and happy.

Clark gets jealous.

• Bruce walking in late to a club meeting with Starbucks for everybody: "You would not believe the nightmare I had last night."

Jonathan already pulling out a clipboard and pen: "Tell us all about it."

Harley coughing to hide her chuckles: "Yes tell the dream psychologist that has a nightmare kink all about your scary dream."

Jonathan who is blushing now, is it in anger? Is it in embarrassment? Who knows: "One class! One dream psychology class! And I do not have a fear kink!"

Bruce finally taking his seat: "Denial. Interesting. Now let's acknowledge the fact that Harley said you had a nightmare kink not fear kink. Do you want to discuss that further Mr. Crane?"

Jonathan throwing a pen at Bruce: "We were talking about you not me Rich Boy!"

Bruce and Harley cackling.

• Jonathan and Harley are still villains but they kind of start to edge into the anti-hero stage of things. Nobody knows why expect Bruce and he's so proud.

• They actually call each other on their bad days. Harley yelled at Bruce about being more open with his kids and he actually really took it to heart. Jon got collectively yelled at about his self esteem issues and taking better care of himself because no Jon, a human can't just survive off corn and sweet tea. Harley had a tough love session when Bruce and Jon had to tell her just how bad Joker was to her and yeah she realized that but she shouldn't be afraid to get into a relationship with someone just because of that past toxic relationship.

• Bruce's kids actually start to get comfortable with Harley and Jonathan being around the house from time to time. It's still weird to them but they see first hand the changes that all three are going through.

• Bruce babysits Lou and Bud for Harley whenever she needs him too or if she gets in trouble and is sent to Arkham. Damian loves helping out with them.

• Batman may or may not have taken the long way to the university when he heard Scarecrow took over the Psych 101 class because the teacher was obviously incompetent Bats. He was teaching young impressionable minds!

• Bruce admits to them that he hates the whole 'Playboy Billionaire' role he used to play and can't seem to escape from. Especially because he's a dad now, it's not like he can really afford to be a playboy.

• Harley insists on teaching Bruce how to fight because she can't believe how often he gets himself into bad situations.

Jonathan agrees about this and even gives Bruce some of his Fear Toxin in case he ever has to use it in defense to get away from anyone. He even put it in a pepper spray-like bottle so it would go unnoticed.

I have so much more headcanons but here are a few XD

Enjoy

[rosemaryandarsenic]

New Beginnings (Part 2)

Spoiler warning for season 4! Eddie x reader. Y/N is Joyce’s daughter and is 19 in this. I switch primarily between her and Eddie’s POV. It's been a minute since I’ve written a fic so bare with me haha. Let me know what you think!

Warnings: No explicit spicy content in this part! Hints at graphic violence, hospitals and wounds. Substance abuse and parental abuse. 18+, minors DNI!

Eddie’s POV, beginning in the upside down and progressing through till the hospital.

“Shit! Fuck! Sto-“ Dustin grunted under the weight of my body as Y/N held desperately to my feet trying to push me through the portal. “Please be careful.” She was screaming as I felt myself thud through. I can’t move. I can barely breath. Everything is hot, burning like someone lit my clothes on fire. Blood is in my eyes. I’m fucking dead. Let me die. My brain starts to feel…fuzzy. Let me-

…

My eyes are prying themselves open and all I can see is white light and distant voices. It’s Y/N, one of them. I can hear her calling my name. Gotta listen, gotta answer my name. “EDDIE PLEASE” she’s crying. I’m here. I’m answering my name. “EDDIE!”

…

My head fucking hurts, my arms fucking hurt, my sides burn. Fuck. 

“Eddie? Oh my god he’s awake. Eddie!” Wayne is leaning over and staring at me, and I hear Henderson hollering. “GUYS HES UP.”

I hear Steve, “Dustin stop yelling, dude.”

Footsteps rush in and Y/N is over me, tears falling. “Oh my god, Munson. Oh my god.” I can feel her tears on my face.

…

The drugs make my eyes blurry when I wake up, the first input is sound. I can hear a nurse moving around and pry my eyelids open. Y/N’s sitting in front of me, clutching a cup of coffee like it’s rope in gym class and staring at me. Her eyes get all round and doe like when she’s focused, like she’s opening them wider to take in more information. 

“Rise and shine sunshine, time to do another bandage swap!” The nurse said as she started moving my pillows around. What a buzzkill.

“A moment with m’lady please” I mumbled, reaching out for Y/N . She blushes when I call her that, I internally chuckled. I like watching her squirm sometimes, even in near death circumstances she can be a brat. 

“Hey you, you want me to stay for this round?” Y/N was taking my hand, wiggling her fingers between mine. 

“Nah, you know the deal. Just wanted to see you first.” I blinked a few times, trying to concentrate on her face. “What time is it?” 

“10 pm”, she moved my fingers around, which felt oddly calming. “Jonathan brought me that new Stephen king novel, we can read when you’re done.” 

I smile, best as I can with this shit coursing through my system. “Yeah”

“Yeah” she smiles back. 

I stare at her face, trying to figure out what she’s thinking. There are dark circles under her eyes, darker than before and I feel a pang in my chest. 

“Better go before the peep show, Y/N, I’m charging extra today.”

She lets go of my hand and lingers in the doorway, “like anyone would pay to see your ugly mug, Munson.”

“Don’t be jealous you can’t afford me, baby.”

The nurse takes her time undoing my bandages. Thankfully the drugs do their job, I can barely feel anything except when I move too suddenly or lift my arms. 

“- you need to make sure you’re not disturbing the scabs as much as possible,” the nurse is talking and I’m barely listening, “we’re almost done with the worst of the healing which means someone will get to take a shower soon.” 

I sighed at the thought, a real goddamn shower. The nurse laughed at my expression. “Almost there.”

I’m sick of it, but I appreciate that she at least tries. Since getting dragged through the upside down, everyone babies me. I miss when that kind of thing came from condescending teachers, not my friends. I winced as I pulled my dressing gown back on. The day I can wear normal clothes again, I’m burning this thing. I grab IT off the chair and open the cover. Y/N wanders back in as the nurse leaves, “I swear Stephen King is on crack when he writes this stuff” I looked up at her, “Max would love this shit.”

Her expression clouded, her eyes widening again and looking down at the floor. I let us sit in silence for a minute, before I said something stupid again. 

“Thinkin about something Byers?” I knew she was worried about Max, I was too. 

“Sorry, just max.”

I nodded. “Anything new?”

“No, Erica said she’s been moving around more but she still won’t talk.” She sighed. 

“Just give her time, Y/N. Being in that place, it…”

I trailed off as I recalled the dark skyline from that night. A picture of Y/N, terror stricken as the demobats flung themselves at her is sear into my brain. I shook it off. She’s fine now, get it together.

“It fucks with you, yknow. She’s tougher than she looks.” I was trying to convince myself just as much as her. 

“Hell yea she is. You both are.” I could tell she was trying to sound upbeat, “I’ll make sure Lucas gets the book ASAP. Right now it’s our turn.” I grinned at her and made my way to the large chair on the side of the room. “I wanna read to you tonight,” i grunted a little as I sat, “as much as your voice is music to my ears, I gotta practice for Hellfire.” 

She laughed, “okay, dungeon master, let’s hear it.”

I gave her a look, trying to hide the way her words made me blush. Dungeon Master...huh, why does that turn me on? I shake my head a little to clear my thoughts.

“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-Eight years…” I read intently for about ten minutes before I glanced up, pausing as I saw Y/N’s eyelids flutter shut. She didn’t open them when I stopped, but I wasn’t sure she was asleep. What is she thinking about? A blush is creeping over her cheeks as she smirks a little. I decided to keep reading before I got caught staring again, but my mind wonders, not focusing on the words. 

I heard Y/N shift as I finished the chapter, her eyes fluttering open.

“You want me to keep going?” I asked, shifting from sitting in the same position. She nodded slightly, staring at me in a bit of haze. I scanned her face. 

“Before I do, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, why?” She instantly looked concerned. Shit. 

“I…I just wanted you to know that I’m fine. I like being here but I don’t want you to lose sleep, ykno-“ 

She sat up abruptly, cutting me off with a scowl.

“Do you not want me to keep coming?”

I panicked a little, frowning, and tried not to stutter. “No, I want you here. I just…”

I hesitated. How the hell do I tell her I’m worried about he?. “I don’t want you to miss school. Or being with your mom and will-“

“It’s fine.” She said flatly. “The cabin is already crowded, and I see them during the day.”

“Gareth said he hasn’t seen you in a week.”

She turned a darker pink. Is she angry? 

“My professors approved a late drop, I’m retaking classes in the spring. Also, Gareth  knows I’m usually not near his house. Corroded Coffin can’t even meet right now anyways.”

“Y/N I’m just saying -“

“It’s not your choice.” She snapped.

Oh she’s mad alright. Fuck. I felt irritation bubbling up. 

“Fine.”

“Fine.” She shrugged back. Awkward silence flooded in, as I stared at the floor then adjusted the book in my hands. I don’t know why but I needed her to be okay and instead I was pissing her off. It made my sides throb. Both of us had nearly died and I needed her to be safe. I started to read again, glad she wasn’t leaving. My thoughts wandered as I made my way across the page. It's bad timing, to catch feelings now. More feelings. I tried not to sigh. Leave it to me to fall for my best friend during the end of the fucking world. 

Fuck. 

[thatsthetriick]

Jjba characters in a coming of age movie with their s/o

Summary: What if you and (insert jjba character) are in a coming of age movie? What would happen in the movie, how would you interact?  Header photo: Haruiro astronaut Pairings: Joestars x s/o

Jonathan Joestar  ── Bleachers ♡ You’ll probably be in a boarding school in the 1960s in england. ♡ He is the star student and you’re probably just a normie and you wouldn’t want to associate yourself with him and you just want to live a peaceful life ♡ You’ll be asked to assist the rugby team in exchange for some grades and you couldn’t deny it so you agreed with your teacher and you two had a deal. Your job is simple, all you need to do is just to be in charge of the attendance and be the coach’s spokesman if he’s busy and it wasn’t that bad. ♡ You are also a supervisor whenever the coach is not around and you overall just support everyone just like an assistant. They need water? you’ll get some for the whole team, etc. ♡ Jonathan will honestly start developing feelings for you, and you to him, he starts helping you with your homework on the bleachers and you two will go anywhere together, and you’ll mostly be the one to rebel and sneak out at night to hang out with him and he’d usually feel scared to skip but he didnt let his fear take over him and he just followed you. ♡ The conflict is probably the fact that you witnessed a girl confessing to him near a fountain within school grounds, it kinda broke your heart and lost your motivation to assist the team yet you still continued. ♡ Your ending is probably depressing because he really likes this girl who confessed to him(probably Erina) so you’re left in the shadow and moreover it’s hard to skip and rebel with him when he prioritizes his girlfriend all the time. ♡ Your iconic scene with him is probably him helping you on the bleachers. Joseph Joestar  ──Coward ♡ It’ll be 2000s in america as well probably and this movie will be a enemies to lovers thing huehue.  ♡ You and Joseph hate each other and the whole school knew that and no one ever knew why, maybe because the first day you went to school you accidentally bumped to him and made your food go over him which made him held a grudge on you but at the same time flirt with you? Or make odd statements which just annoys you. ♡ You don’t take him seriously, you take him as a playboy so his flirts wouldn’t affect you at all and it’s not like you’ll take the praises that came out of that brunette’s mouth. ♡ It all changed when obviously you two got assigned in a project that requires the both of you to go to each other’s houses and at first you two argued a lot but you two started thinking that maybe it’s not that bad. ♡ The conflict is probably the fact that this guy likes another girl and you start getting confused with your emotions everytime he interacts with his girl crush, you really feel jealous but you’re still in denial. ♡ He also has feelings for you honestly but since he knew you practically hated so he knew he had NO chance which is why he just shooed his feelings away for you even though he genuinely really liked you.   ♡ You get into a rivalary with the girl he liked which led to the two of you arguing publicly and you probably got embarrassed since she revealed to everyone that you liked Joseph. ♡ Joseph actually felt really happy to hear this and the movie ends with the two of you dating but being really good friends as well. ♡ Your iconic scene with him is both of you lying down on his bed while looking at the ceiling and talking about stories you two experienced. Jotaro Kujo  ──Not that necessary ♡ The setting would probably be somewhere in the 1990s in america in a tiny town somewhere. ♡ Jotaro never really had a permanent home and by this he constantly moved town to town, which means he never really got close with anyone else in his schools and he’d prefer it that way that he wont just get close to anyone ♡ Though he continues being in arguments and physical fights and one of the fights got him in detention with you, now you in the other hand always get in detention for your little pranks to the teachers or skipping and getting caught, let’s just say that in this movie you’re not really the best student and you didn’t really care moreover mind, but when you saw Jotaro you got a vibe you two will get along. ♡ Since you two were the only ones in the classroom you whisper him to follow you as you two escape the window, he’ll probably groan or grunt at you at first but he’ll eventually follow you to get out of detention without using the front door. ♡ You two escape outside the window and run to a forest nearby probably, he’s not much of a talker so you did the talking for him most of the time, you two will do a lot of things in this movie, such as climbing rooftops of houses or going to playgrounds while talking or just bike around the neighbourhood, getting ice cream. ♡ The conflict here is that he’ll be moving soon and it’s hard for the both of you to be separated, since he doesnt’ want you to get hurt his immature 17 year old self would probably tell you that he doesn’t want to be friends or something that hurts, like “I never liked you as a friend anyways”, “ I just used you.” ♡ You would be heartbroken and deep inside you didn’t know why he would randomly tell these things to you and you would distance yourself from him and school generally that’s how much it affected your friendship. ♡ The ending would probably be upsetting and sad with you being left in the town and with Jotaro leaving, he really thought that he could make you leave him by insulting you but it just made you sad instead of being mad at him honestly. ♡ Though the epilogue would probably give the audiences hope since you two will bump to each other 8 years later as adults. ♡ Your iconic scene with him is probably walking to the forest and you doing the talking for him. Josuke Higashikata  ──It started at the Diner  ♡ The setting would probably be in the 50s in a 50s diner in america.  ♡ You were a teenage regular customer there probably a loner and perfect student who’s got everything and is technically bored of life ♡ Everything changed when a bunch of deliquents sat on a table across yours and one of them got your attention the most, he probably saw you staring and you would feel embarrassed honestly and you will hesitate talking to him. ♡ You’ll only probably meet him there but you’ll eventually find him in the town and encounter him everywhere but you still hesitate to talk to him but you two started to talk and there was instant connection. ♡ The iconic scenes you would have with him is probably talking to him in a diner. ♡ The movie would probably also show about your boring life becoming more interesting as you rebel with him, the movie will show the message that teenagers should have fun while they can especially when they are still in their childhood, and that you should never miss the opportunity of meeting new people. ♡ The conflict in the movie is probably your school and your parents and their expectations and the fear that Josuke will be bored of you the more you focus on your education than friends and that he’ll eventually leave you, and how simple things in your life can easily block you from hanging out with him. ♡ The ending would probably be sweet and happy with the two of you spending your whole school year and summer bonding with each other, probably a open ending for the audience to decide. Giorno Giovanna ──Oh to see without my eyes ♡ Two of you are two teenagers in nothern italy which means you’re in a more grassy parts of italy, and you are in a wealthy family. The setting is 80s-90s italy ♡ He honestly goes to the same highschool as you  and he was the new student probably. Your movie with him is probably wholesome and calming and peaceful. ♡ You always like going on the waters and beaches and he would just watch splashing water around and swimming. You two enjoy hanging out at nighttime the most, you would run around the town laughing and biking around near the forest and you would have midnight picnics where you would make snacks for the both of you. ♡ It’s instant connection, the day you met you two were already connected and already friends and it stayed until this day. You two eventually also get feelings for each other honestly as you guys hangout everyday to entertain yourselves. He was kind and polite moreover a gentleman ♡ The conflict is that he has a dream, that he wants to becoming a don of a mafia and you couldn’t stop him and instead you just wholeheartedly supported him till he eventually had to leave you to persue his dream, he went missing and missed a lot of school days because of this. ♡ The ending is sad you two never saw each other again and he intentionally did this because he didnt want you to be in danger ♡ Your iconic scene with him is probably you walking on the shore of the ocean with him by your side as you two talk away as you feel the cold touch of the water touching your bare feet as he stays dry on the sand.

Sorry dudes I’m still in part 5 :”DD, srry for typos im tryna speedrun this xD, might do the jobros and jofoes next >:DD

[canadian-riddler]

The Future of Fear

By Indiana

Characters: Jonathan Crane, Edward Nygma

Synopsis: You really CAN find anything on the Internet.

AO3

Edward had been giggling to himself over something on his computer on his side of their shared office space for some time now and it was becoming incredibly distracting.  Jonathan had been trying to think of some suitable method to shut him up while not angering him enough to force Jonathan to leave and pay for his own office, but had come up lamentably short.  

Perhaps another cup of coffee would help.  He retrieved his empty mug and made his way towards the percolator, which was unfortunately located on a low table behind Edward’s desk.  Edward, strangely, did not attempt to goad him into conversation as per usual, so obviously Jonathan had to look for himself at what it was that had him so engrossed.

It seemed to be some sort of Internet forum.  There were very few things Jonathan could have found less interesting than a horde of anonymous bumpkins arguing with each other over the smallest of inconsequential things.  He shook his head and put his cup down on the table.

“You really should see this,” Edward said.  The squeak of the chair indicated he had turned around in it.

“I can’t imagine why I would care to.”

“This is a series of posts about what a helpful person your fans believe you to be, for one thing.”

Helpful?  Fans?  Jonathan barely dignified that with a backwards glance.  “You’re not even trying to be convincing this time.”

“No,” Edward said, tilting the screen back and turning the laptop towards him.  Jonathan moved to face him and leaned forward, his fingers splayed along the desk’s edge in order to maintain his balance.  “Look.  This person is convinced you wouldn’t harm them because they’ve been diagnosed with GAD.”

“They what?” He did not have time to locate this post on the screen, much less read it, because Edward had already whisked it back towards himself.

“’I mean, he was a teacher once, right?  That must mean he cared,’” read Edward.  “’He wouldn’t make someone with anxiety suffer even more.’”

“Edward, how do I find this person?  I have urgent information for them.”  Or urgent plans, at least.

“From the number of people who claim their greatest fear is their student loans,” Edward answered, the corner of his mouth curling upward, “you could probably put up a flyer at any university simply offering to help them.”

“Help them?” Jonathan repeated.  “Why – with what?”

“Well, this person seems convinced you would empathise with them because they were bullied as a child. So their childhood trauma, I presume.”

Even after he’d read it himself it still made very little sense.  “And why is that?”

“Because you were bullied and that makes you kindred spirits.”

The next batch of text on the screen seemed to prove this theory and yet it still seemed as though Edward was making it all up.  Jonathan continued to stare at it until the only logical thing he could do in response came to him: he laughed.  The more he thought about it, the funnier it became, and he found himself with his face buried in his arms atop the desk, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. What utter nonsense was that? Help someone resolve their ingrained traumas merely because – no.  No, it simply could not be real.  Edward was pulling his leg.  He straightened, wiping his face with his sleeve, and discovered Edward had disappeared. And taken the laptop with him.  It had clearly been a joke.  It was just not possible that there were people who sat down and typed out their fears and personal histories in great detail and left them where anyone could find them.  There were especially no people who actually thought he, the Master of Fear, would ever attempt to solve their –

His thoughts were interrupted by Edward’s return, which was accompanied by a flurry of papers thrust into Jonathan’s face close enough he had to crane his neck backward.  “My gift to you,” said Edward, resuming his seat. Jonathan looked down at the first page.

It was a list of… personal information.  And a lot of it.  Familial problems, dislikes, triggers… “Edward, this can’t be right,” Jonathan protested. “You made all of this up.”

“In this day and age, I don’t have to,” Edward answered.  “Think about it, Jonathan.  Now you only have half the work to do.  Hell, I think you could get away with picking some kid who’s terrified of climate change by strapping them into a virtual reality headset and investing in a couple of heat lamps.”

“Come now, Edward,” scoffed Jonathan, putting aside the papers for the moment, “surely they would notice they were wearing one of those things.”

“Why would I suggest it if it wouldn’t work?”  Edward presented him with a video of a begoggled woman who seemed to be in the throes of a fear of heights so intense she had forgotten entirely that she was crawling on her living room floor as opposed to venturing out of an elevator onto a thin wooden plank eighty stories from the ground.  

“Why did no one tell me about this sooner?”

“To be honest, I thought you’d start lecturing me about doing things the old-fashioned way,” Edward said, leaning back in the chair and clasping his hands behind his head in order to stretch.  Jonathan shook his head.

“Oh, no, Edward. Knowing all of these things ahead of time means I can get right to the interesting parts.”

“The screaming?”

“And the crying, and the begging, and the shaking and sweating,” Jonathan said, with a little more fondness than he meant to, and Edward laughed.  

“You will find no shortage of people happy to freely hand out the information you need,” he said.  “Now go away.  I have things of my own to take care of.”

“I need to borrow your phone,” Jonathan said.  “There are a few calls I would like to make.”

Edward fished it out of his back pocket and handed it to him after he had unlocked it.  Jonathan returned to his own desk, taking a few minutes to determine whom he wanted to contact first.  The first number rang and rang, as he had expected, and as it did so he mentally composed the message he was going to leave.  When the requisite beep came he spoke in a soothing voice long since well-practised.  “Hello, my name is Dr Jonathan Crane.  A friend of mine passed along your story and I have to say that it truly touched me. I should like to set up a meeting so we can discuss getting you the treatment you need for your anxiety.  And not to worry, it will be free of charge. As you know I have a personal understanding of your circumstances.  Please contact me at your earliest convenience.  Good day.”

Edward, to his credit, had managed to keep his laughter quiet enough it was unlikely the phone had picked up on it from that distance.  Jonathan could not keep an amused smile from his own lips.  “If they fall for that they deserve what they get,” Edward said, folding his arms across his chest.  “I suppose we’re going to need to rig you up a fake office.”

“You are going to need to rig me up a fake office,” Jonathan corrected, selecting a new name on his list. “And I need one of those headsets. I would also appreciate a cup of coffee.”

Edward heaved a long-suffering sigh, but he did shove his chair backwards in order to set up the percolator. Jonathan dialled a fresh number and waited.

“Hello, my name is Dr Jonathan Crane.  A friend of mine passed along your story, and I must tell you that I was truly moved by it…”