ARCADIA ACADEMY FOR BOYS Chapter Four "The First Day of School" I stood in the hallway outside my classroom door, afraid to enter or even peek through the window. It was my first teaching job, after all. Was I up to the task? Moreover, I hadn't expected to begin immediately and had only packed for the weekend. I telephoned Jeff to let him know I'd been hired, and he made me promise to write often and send photographs in exchange for his shipping my luggage and closing my apartment lease. It wasn't a problem: I owed him a debt I coud never repay. So there I was in the hallway, without a lesson plan and afraid to enter my classroom, dressed in a regulation school uniform. It was a matter of necessity but I felt ridiculous. Frank and Harrison had encouraged me to wear a shorts suit, saying that my youthful looks would help me relate to the students -- and I didn't really resist, wanting to indulge my fetish -- but gazing down at my naked, muscular thighs framed between the charcoal gray shorts and knee stockings I felt certain that the boys would razz. As it turned out, I would never wear long pants again during my stay at the school. The late bell rang. There was nothing to be done. I gripped my briefcase tight, took a deep breath and opened the door onto my new career. The children stood up respectfully beside their desks as I entered, chairs scraping. I walked quickly to the blackboard, my hard leather shoes clicking against the dark wooden floor. I took up a piece of chalk to write my name, hiding my anxiety while trying to project authority. I wasn't ready for this. Arcadia's school week lasted six days, from Monday to Saturday, and summer and winter vacation was limited to a few weeks. The students had to be kept busy, and the long week was the reason why our students consistently scored near the top on national tests. I had to deal with several grades, elementary through high school. Weekdays began with breakfast at 7:00 sharp, the first of two hour classes at 8:00, lunch at noon, then more classes from 1:00 until 5:00, an hour of study hall and tutorials at 6:00, then dinner until 7:00. An exhausting day for teachers and students alike. "Good morning, children." "Good morning, Mr. Wilson!" I turned to face a room of wide-eyed middle grade boys, each one staring at my legs and shorts in disbelief. In like manner, I stared at their legs and shorts, too. Row after magnificent row of bare boy legs. A bubble of silence engulfed us, then popped when a dark, painfully skinny mexican boy in the front row yelped, "You're wearing shorts!" I blushed and shuffled, swinging my briefcase like a lunchbox. I was criss-crossed with a double sense of reality. Somehow, when I hadn't been paying attention, I'd become a man, and I did not know how it had happened. But then I had never spent much time around boys, always keeping my distance, alone with my yearnings. Not knowing how to bridge the arbitrary, paranioa-wild gap. I was not used to being perceived as an adult: moving from high school to university without time-off, I had awlays been a student, too. "What's your name?" I asked. "Emiliano," the mexican squeaked, childishly bending at the hips and to the left to survey my uniform unabashedly. I must have looked so alien to the child, while he himself made an adorable sight in his shorts suit, twiggy cocoa-colored thighs agleam. "Hello, Emiliano. Children? Please sit down." There was a shuffle as the boys sat behind old-fashioned wooden desks. I set my briefcase on my own desk and hopped up to sit on its edge, my shorts sliding high and tight around my crotch. I noticed a bright red Michigan apple beside me. I picked it up and polished it on my bare, gold thighs. "Thank you, children, for making me feel welcome," I said, and not knowing what else to do, took a bite of the crisp apple, smiling dumbly at my class. "Mr. Wilson, what are you doing?" Ethan asked, sitting in a back seat of the row to my left. His brows were knit in confusion. "What do you mean?" Desperately, I took another bite of the apple, munching. "Grown ups don't wear short pants," Ethan declared strongly. He sounded as if I had offended some religious belief. My heart sank. I gulped and swallowed without chewing fully, then went into a fit of coughing. "Sir?" "Your name?" I croaked, clearing my throat and pointing to a tiny asian boy. My eyes were watering. I wanted to run away. Instead, I began to swing my legs back and forth, frantically stroking my thighs. "Jimmy Wong. I thought grown ups only wore shorts at the beach or when they played sports." "Is that right? What about women?" "Women?" Jimmy blinked, small face unpetalling with puzzlement. Then it hit me: I had nothing to fear. After arriving at the academy many of the boys had never seen a woman or a girl. They had no access to radios, newspapers or outside media, and discussion of females was carefully limited in their studies. It was difficult for the children to even conceive of the opposite sex. "What I mean to say is that, of course, short pants are for boys, but some men like wearing short pants, too. I hope none of you mind?" The children shook their heads in unison like a flock of little birds, merely learning a new lesson. Their eyes remained glued to my legs, and I spread my thighs to give them a better view. They exchanged glances, shrugged, leaned forward across their desks, processing the unusual appearance of their new teacher. I can't say what thy thought about it, but they accepted my instruction without question. They were well trained. "Let's begin, shall we?" The boys had been studying American frontier history, and they had prepared oral reports while the substitute -- Harrison, no less -- covered until the position was filled. The last instructor had left after a month, adopting two boys aged 6 and 9, and Dwight had let him go, the man a caring individual but unfit for teaching. I called the boys to the front of the class to read and had them stand on a chair. Naturally, they were giggly and shy, fidgeting and pulling at their ties as they recited. I remained seated on my desk, listening soberly, my nervousness fading. When it was Ethan's turn -- the final boy to recite -- I could barely sit still. I swung my legs incessantly. It was the first time I'd seen him in his school uniform, and he made such a perfect prince as walked to the front of the class, olive, narrow thighs shimmering. His pants were neatly creased, his shoes and the brass buttons of his coat polished. The little boy paid great attention to his appearance, another sign that he was on the verge of puberty. He stepped onto the chair, smiling at me crookedly. I melted. Dear Lord, he was an angel. I tried to be objective, eager to hear the naughty, mischievous boy's report, curious about his academic talents.. Ethan read with surprising composure and animation, telling of the Indian wars and their tragedy. He spoke of the nobility of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. My heart quickened. The little boy was a scholar after all! "Chief Joseph and his people fought the U.S. government but were eventually forced to retreat to the Canadian border. Chief Joseph surrended with the following speech, and I think that it sounds like a drum beat. It is the best thing I have ever read. It is so horrible what happened to him and his people that it breaks my heart." I kicked my legs wildly, barely able to contain my admiration. Little Ethan was so open and sincere! And I knew the speech that he was about to read very well, it, too, one of the best things I'd ever read for it's eloquance and nobility. But hearing the speech spoken by the beautiful little boy in his high, unchanged voice, it was like hearing the speech for the first time. Ethan's beauty was beyond the merely physical: his spirit was resplendent, and somehow I loved him even more. He cleared his throat, daintily smoothed his short pants, gripped his report in his lovely, tiny hands and recited the following: I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs our killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohulsote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say no and yes. He who led the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps they are freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sad and sick. From where the sun stands I will fight no more forever. Ethan's voice quavered and his long legs trembled, sunshine dancing along the smooth, child-moist skin along the flat backs of his thighs. His pert rear-end flexed and clenched reflexively, as if his anus was being stretched and penetrated, which it would be -- by me -- a few months from then. I noticed that the class was silent and still, attentive to his every word, and that Ethan was popular and admired. He was an intelligent, passionate, and highly moral child. A gifted, magnificent boy. "Thank you, son," I said breathlessly when he was finished. Ethan turned to me to hand in his report, his eyes distant and moist, swept away with the power of his own oratory. I ached to hold him, to comfort and praise him, but instead I only patted his head solemnly as he stepped down from the chair. It was clear that the boy was more intelligent than most of his teachers and that his pranks were an extension of this. I watched him drift back to his desk and sit dazedly, the boys around him leaning across the aisle to murmur their approval. I was spellbound, intimidated and respectful: I had never met a more marvelous human being. I hopped off the desk and did my best to follow Ethand performace, lecturing on how western settlement was primarily accomplished by men and boys. I spoke of "peg houses," places where frontier men surveyed displays of conical wooden pegs of varying lengths and thickness in order to choose a boy they wanted. The children dutifully wrote in their notebooks, not understanding but quiet in Ethan's wake, holding their fat wooden pencils in their tiny hands. Only Emiliano smiled and I realized that the skinny boy had 'presented'. I apologized for being ill-prepared and assigned the next chapter in their textbook, having them read quietly for the rest of the class. I moved among them, walking the aisles. I patted their heads or squeezed the backs of their necks as I passed. Then I came upon my Ethan. I stood behind him for several minutes, admiring the impossibility of his being. I tweaked his tiny ears that were pink and transluscent with light and squatted behind him, spreading my legs around his chair then bringing them together so that my knees press firmly against his naked thighs. "Behaving yourself?" I whispered. Ethan nodded, holding his textbook tightly and bounceing his legs rapidly, made shy by my closeness. I swooned. The boy's skin was cool velvet gliding between my knees. "Easy. You'll need a seatbelt." I dropped my hands over his thighs just below the hems of his creased, crotch-tight shorts. "Your report was wonderful." "Thank you," he whispered. "History is my favorite subject. I'm not just saying that, either." I squeezed his thighs strongly, fingers sinkinging into his lush, resilient flesh. Goosepimples sprang up along his bouncing legs, making an arcade of texture. "I know you're a good boy. Don't disappoint me." "I won't," Ethan promised, setting his book down. A strong vibe passed between us as the boy patted my knees. "You did good today, Mr. Wilson," he peeped as the bell rang, clutching my knees. "And it's O.K. if you want to wear short pants." Then, like the other children, Ethan raced to collect his materials and stuff them into his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder and dashing away to his next class, his narrow, tender thighs slipping once more through my fingers, suddenly much to empty. I watched him shuffle though the door, then I touched his chair as if touching a religious icon to feel the residual warmth of his tiny, pure, child's bottom.