Chapter Six

One on One

The gymnasium was empty, save for Dinah and her mark. The rest of the students had cleared out ten minutes ago. Meanwhile, the blonde watched as her target finished the last of the extra laps assigned to him, punishment for some trumped up slights he had committed during class.

Normally, Dinah didn’t enjoy lording authority over others. But this was a special case. Plus, the cocky bastard deserved it. Matt Reston rounded the last corner of the basketball court and came to a lumbering stop near Dinah’s seat on the wooden bleachers. She stood up and found herself appreciating the image of Reston feeling the displeasure of exhaustion.

A half-hour ago the jock had been the shining example of high college athleticism – and, in a way, he still was even now. It was a testament to Reston’s excellent physical condition that he appeared to be only somewhat fatigued.

But deep down Dinah knew she shouldn’t have been surprised by the kid’s sterling fitness. The video file Helena had sent Barbara had been hours long. Dinah’s breath caught at the memory and she felt her lips curl in disgust.

The sound of Reston’s heavy breathing brought Dinah back to the uglier reality of the present. Helena’s abuser stood before her, tall, healthy, and unharmed.

Matthew Reston had wealth. He had enrollment at a private college. He had the attention of the fairer sex, even from girls who weren’t wearing the black rings.

Matthew Reston had too many good things going for him.

“Do you know why I kept you after class?” Dinah asked the young man, her voice cold and biting.

Reston leaned back slightly, moving his hands from his knees to behind his head. This had the side-effect of causing the shirt of his gym uniform to rise ever so slightly. It was only a couple of inches but it was enough to expose some skin. Dinah’s eyes flashed down to the breach for a split second, catching sight of a narrow swath of her target’s lower abdominals. Specifically, the v-shaped muscles that stretched down towards his groin-

“I haven’t the faintest idea, Coach.”

Dinah blinked, yanking her gaze upward with speed that would make The Flash jealous. Reston didn’t seem to have noticed her indiscretion, still looking tired with beads of sweat dripping down his temples. But there was something in his eyes, the hint of playfulness that sent a hot flash spread across Dinah’s cheeks.

The blonde powerhouse suddenly felt more than a little underdressed. The outfit she had picked out that morning had already done its job. She had gotten Reston’s attention, drawing his eyes her way enough times for an excuse to give him some extra laps. But now, with so much of her body on display, Dinah felt a rare sensation: vulnerability. She was exposed, her body open to be feasted on by hungry eyes. Reston’s eyes. The eyes of a predator, a sexual abuser. A sexual dominator. Even now, with him exhausted and dripping with sweat, Dinah could only imagine the sort of fantasies playing in his depraved, brutish mind.

Quickly, with no mind to how insecure it made her look, Dinah crossed her arms across her belly, pulling her hoodie closed to cover what little of her body it could. But that still left her bare legs free to be ogled, especially her thighs. It was her own fault. It was the outfit she picked for herself, after all.

It was a brief moment of uncertainty. Dinah found her nerve again quick enough to snap at the young man.

“You haven’t the faintest idea, huh? Well, how about your blatant disrespectful attitude?” She glared up at Reston, frowning. Dinah hoped she appeared intimidating, but she could still feel the warmth in her cheeks. Reston was looking a little flushed himself, so the blonde found a little hope in the possibility he simply wouldn’t notice.

“Disrespectful…” Reston repeated. It was his turn to frown, but unlike Dinah his expression was one of confusion. He stared out into the open air for a moment before turning his eyes on her. He pursed his lips for a moment, as if thinking of something to say. The corner of his lips curled upwards just a little, the tiniest, bashful smile a man like Matt Reston could conjure up. “Well, if anything I’ve said to you these last couple of days came off as disrespectful then I am truly sorry, ma’am. My mom and dad raised me to be a gentleman. I’m just being friendly. Honest. I don’t mean anything by it.”

Dinah’s breath caught again, something that was becoming far too common for her tastes. The smirks, the little movements of his lips, the micro-expressions that crossed his admittedly cute face… Dinah was constantly on the defensive, forcing herself to remember that this… handsome young man was a rapist. A predator of women. A sexual abuser. A criminal who had taken her friend, Helena, hostage.

Why would a guy who looks like Matthew Reston need to use mind-control on women?

It was a question Dinah and Barbara had been asking themselves constantly. Why resort to crime to get female attention when the attention was already theirs? Dinah had been a teenager once. The Matt Restons and Andrew Westfields of high college were never hurting for female business. Dinah knew that for a fact… because she was the type of girl who kept them business.

But fighting crime for years had taught Dinah one thing: sometimes criminals didn’t need to make sense. Sometimes they break the law for the thrill. Sometimes they hurt people just because they can. Creeps like Matthew Reston don’t need a reason to prey on women. And that was why Dinah was gonna take this bastard down.

Dinah nodded, her lips pursed tightly as she regarded the tired teenager before her. She watched the tiny drops of sweat dribble down from his hairline to his jaw then down the side of his neck, droplets disappearing under the fabric of his shirt.

“Right.” Dinah said, her voice clipped and emotionless. She turned away and sat back down on the bleachers, making a show of holding her nose shut with her fingers. “We’ll continue this discussion after you’ve cleaned yourself up. You smell like my dad’s closet.”

“It’s already fifteen minutes into the next period-” Reston started to complain. Dinah wouldn’t have any of it.

“I’ll keep you as long as I want.” She said firmly, crossing her legs. “Go shower. And then we’ll discuss your behavior in my class.”

Dinah could tell Reston wanted to say something. The look on his face was a mix of confusion, annoyance… and anger. That was something new. Reston normally kept his emotions in check. Dinah felt a small spark of pleasure, deep in her belly. She was getting to him. She kept her eyes trained on his, daring him to talk back.

Reston didn’t talk back. Instead he turned and retreated towards the boys’ locker room. And while he did so, Dinah caught the familiar glimmer of the black ring on his hand.

Raised to be a gentleman… My ass…

– – –

Matt considered taking a short shower. Duck under the cold spray with a dollop of shampoo, rinse for twenty seconds, and then jump back out. The tall teenager winced as he imagined the discomfort of chilled water pelting his back. He was already late for his next class and no amount of rushing would help him be on time. Plus, Miss Blake wanted to keep him even longer afterwards. Matt decided to take his time.

Waiting for the spray to get warm allowed him to get his thoughts in order. Miss B had only been teaching athletics for a couple days and Matt already found himself square at the top of her shit list. Which, in Matt’s comment, was a damn shame. The blonde was an absolute knockout.

Matt stood under the warm shower for several long moments, letting the water massage and soothe his scalp, neck, shoulders. He let out a satisfied sigh, allowing his entire body to relax, enjoying the feeling of all the grime, sweat, and stink pouring off of his skin and swirling down the drain.

Eventually, the young teen reluctantly shut the water off and grabbed a towel. First he dried his hair, then his face, moving next onto his arms, chest, legs, before finally wrapping the white band of fuzzy fabric around his waist. A fresh change of clothes was waiting for him in his gym locker.

The sound of his bare feet plodding along the tile floor echoed through the empty locker room. He reached his locker and was about to turn the dial on the lock when a sharp, feminine voice cut through the silence. The locker room, as it turned out, wasn’t so empty after all.

“Wow.” Spoke the voice of his favorite gym teacher. Matt dared a glance over his shoulder just to confirm that it really was her. It was. “You really don’t ever take that ring off, do you?”

The short blonde woman was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed and wearing a cold expression on her pretty face. She hadn’t changed out of her revealing gym clothes and even when wearing a loose hoodie, Miss Blake was all legs, thighs, and toned belly. Matt briefly wondered back to some lovely dreams he had experienced that started in methods similar to this. But Miss Blake’s hard eyes and icy glare told him that this encounter was likely gonna be far less pleasant.

Matt pressed his lips into a thin line, making an effort to keep an even expression. He took a quick look at the ring Miss Blake was talking about, the band of black stone on the middle finger of his right hand. The Brotherhood ring. Why was she all the time bugging him about it?

He turned his eyes back towards the woman staring him down. Matt didn’t like getting into arguments. He certainly didn’t like getting into arguments with women. And he especially didn’t like getting into arguments while naked.

“This is the boys locker room, Miss B.” Matt spoke after a moment, his voice bold and firm but not quite loud or booming. He didn’t want to give too strong of a reaction. No, that might be exactly what Miss B wanted. A man could never be too careful with the kinds of head-games women played.

“Yes, it is.” Miss Blake pushed off the wall and began closing the distance between them, taking slow, deliberate steps. Matt took a small breath, barely perceptible, and reflexively held tighter onto the knot that kept the towel around his waist. The young man tightened his jaw, squaring his shoulders as the blonde bombshell approached. Is she… swaying her hips?

“So, why are you here?” Matt asked, his voice just a little louder and eyes just a little harder. The young man found he still had some steel in his spine. Matthew Reston was the big man on the Kingston campus. He wasn’t gonna come undone because of one hot gym teacher.

Miss Blake had whittled the space between them down to a mere couple of feet. She looked him up and down, rocking slightly on her feet, cocking her hips – well-shaped as they were – slowly from side to side. She was checking him out, blatantly checking him out, but there was something else in her eyes, something colder, more calculating.

“I said we were going to talk once you got cleaned up.” Miss Blake told him calmly – and coldly. “Now you’re cleaned up. So we’re going to talk.”

– – –

Chapter Seven

Contact with the Enemy

Even at his ripe young age, Matthew Reston had experienced a good distribute of unexpected encounters. Most of them turned out more than pleasant for the teenage athlete, sure, but he still had the occasional wrench thrown into his daily routines. Car trouble, no cell phone signal, computer crashes, bitter ex-girlfriends, the usual misfortunes that plagued young men in the modern age.

Now, Matt could add “having your gym teacher walk in on you naked” to the list. With nothing but a towel around his waist and his body still damp from the shower he just finished taking, Matt felt a sensation he rarely experienced: vulnerability.

He didn’t like it. But being that his predicament was at a certain blonde’s hand… Matt didn’t really hate it, either.

Miss Blake stood but two feet from him, her eyes pointedly fixed on his chest and abs. She took another moment to drink in the sight of half-naked Matt before pulling her eyes up to meet his own.

Despite being caught off-guard, Matt felt a small surge of pride at her silent appraisal. Maybe she was only screwing with head, but getting checked out by an older woman still gave him a rush. Matt took another breath through his nose as his manhood stirred just beneath the towel.

“Can I get dressed?” Matt motioned towards his locker.

“No.” Miss Blake answered coldly. Well… I guess that’s that, Matt wondered with a half-frown. “First, you’re going to explain your disrespectful attitude towards me.”

Frustration fell across Matt’s face but he quickly composed himself. This bullshit again…

“Well…” Matt started, his lips pulling back into a tight, flat smile. “To be perfectly honest, Miss B… I don’t think I’ve been acting disrespectful.”

“Is that right?” Miss Blake took another step closer. The space between them couldn’t have been more than a foot now. She looked up into his eyes, glaring. “You don’t think flirting with your teacher in the middle of class isn’t disrespectful?”

“I told you I didn’t mean anything by it.” Matt insisted, jaw clenched.

“Bullshit.” Miss Blake hissed, poking a finger into Matt’s bare chest. Her finger stayed in place as she pushed him some inches backward until his back was pressed against his locker. “And don’t even get me started on you blatantly disobeying my instructions. I told you to take that ring off.”

Matt felt a number of emotions. Anger at being intruded upon. Embarrassed at being caught practically naked. But he also felt, on some level, admiration for the short blonde. There was enough admiration to keep his cock stirring between his legs when anger normally would have won out. Though that might have had to do with how attractive Miss Blake was. Matt had a feeling he wouldn’t have had this much patience with a male teacher. Especially with a male teacher who was as hyper-focused on the dress code as Miss Blake seemed to be.

The other teachers knew not to ask about the black rings. But Miss Blake was new. It was obvious she wasn’t part of the program. And Matt knew that third period in the boys locker room was neither the time nor the place to introduce someone to the finer nuances of Kingston Academy.

But that didn’t mean Matt couldn’t have some fun with an… Uninitiated.

“Sorry, Miss B.” Matt said plainly. “The ring stays on.”

Miss Blake sneered, again jabbing her finger into his chest. She spoke in a low and harsh voice, her words dripping with anger and passion. “You are fucking unbelievable, Reston. You don’t tell me how things are going to go. That’s not how this works. You don’t talk to me like we’re equals. You know why? Because we’re not equals. You got that, punk? I’m the teacher, you’re the student. I’m an adult, you’re a fucking teenager.”

“You’re a woman. And I’m a man.” The words spilled out, Matt’s back-talking nature coming as easily as breathing. The young man knew that it was the type of vaguely chauvinistic barb that drove the Miss B’s of the world crazy. The small upward curl at the corner of his mouth was the icing on the cake. There was no way she wouldn’t take the bait.

Her widened eyes and faintly blushing cheeks told him that the words had done their job beautifully.

Miss Blake took a half-step back, bringing her finger up to point accusingly at his face. She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever angry or willful retort she had died in her throat. For a moment, she even looked confused, like she wasn’t entirely sure that Matt had even said what he said. But that passed quickly. The righteous anger returned, Miss Blake’s eyes burning into Matt’s soul.

“…Excuse me?” Miss Blake all but demanded an explanation with those two simple words, her voice layered with restrained but potent outrage. Bright eyes, pink cheeks, and nearly a full foot shorter than Matt – Even when royally pissed off, the blonde gym teacher couldn’t be anything but cute and sexy.

The young man’s cock twitched as a number of fantasies played in his mind. Angry, petulant women had a certain appeal, a taste that Matt had yet to try himself. And Miss Blake, vocal, headstrong, and drop-dead beautiful, would be one hell of a first taste.

“Just highlighting another way how we’re not equal.” Matt said with humble confidence, as if he were making simple small-talk and not intentionally poking the very awake and very angry lioness.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like.” Matt allowed his smile to get a tiny bit bigger. “You’re a woman. I’m a man.”

To her credit, Miss Blake powered through the shock pretty quickly. She was back on the warpath, red in the face and advancing on Matt with wrathful eyes full of vicious intent. The young man knew then that he had overplayed his clever mouth. A woman like Miss Blake was never gonna be toppled by words alone. No, a woman like her was only gonna be brought down by desperate measures. In the split second before Miss Blake descended upon him, Matthew Reston brought out the Nuclear Option.

“Now you listen to me you little shit…” The short blonde had closed the distance to mere inches, her finger stabbing accusingly into Matt’s bare chest. The young man deliberately crossed his muscled arms…

…Allowing his towel to fall to the tile floor.

She knew instantly what had happened, most likely catching the movement in her peripheral vision. Again, the righteous fury and indignation fizzled out, like dumping a bucket of water onto a campfire. Miss Blake stared into Matt’s eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line and her jaw visibly clenched. He caught her eyes quickly darting down between them, once then twice, as if to confirm the… enormity of the situation.

Matthew Reston knew how impressive of a specimen he was. Even half-hard, he put most men to shame. With his favorite blonde having put such little space between them, the head of his prick was brushing against her bare thighs. The warmth of her skin was heavenly on his cock. And if Matt could feel it, then Miss Blake could too.

“Just in case you needed some proof.” Matt confessed with all the humility of a king.

– – –

Dinah was struck silent. The mighty thunderbolt of Kingston Academy’s resident Zeus was touching her leg. Why she hadn’t slapped the little perv and bolted out of the locker room was puzzling. She had more than enough reason to. A student exposing himself to a teacher had to be proper grounds for expulsion. But the blonde powerhouse couldn’t move. Hell, she could hardly discover the nerve to speak. Dinah looked into the young man’s eyes and saw calm, supreme confidence. Then her eyes were drawn downward and she saw why.

Dinah knew Matthew Reston was… gifted. The video Helena had sent to the Clocktower – and the recordings from Barbara’s hidden cameras – had given them ample evidence. But seeing him now, literally in the flesh…

His manhood twitched then, causing the head to brush against her bare thigh. Lifting upwards towards the nexus between her legs. It was as if it was a living creature, ugly and swollen and throbbing, a bloodhound sniffing out its prey. Dinah jolted back a step, as if Reston’s cock was a red-hot poker. It was only then that she had found the nerve to speak again.

“Am I supposed to be impressed? Intimidated?” Dinah kept her voice level and measured. Her usual fiery attitude had checked out of the building.