I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody.

Reginald Sterling, a man whose intellect was a finely-tuned Stradivarius in a world of kazoos, considered the morning light slanting across his mahogany desk. It was, he mused, a perfect representation of Q4 revenue projections: promising, yet highlighting the dust on his Fabergé egg paperweight. He buzzed his intercom.

“Penelope, my dear,” he began, his voice a rich baritone that had calmed numerous markets, “would you be a gem and bring me the preliminary data on the Düsseldorf acquisition? I wish to dissect its entrails before the ten o’clock. Also, a double-shot macchiato, dry as the Sahara, please. I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody.”

The words tumbled out of his mouth like drunkards from a pub, unbidden and unwelcome. Reginald froze. His own voice echoed in his ears, a bizarre, vulgar coda to an otherwise perfectly reasonable request. Where had that come from? He was a man of impeccable self-control. His bowels were fortresses of decorum, his trousers pristine fortifications.

A long, profound silence stretched through the intercom. Reginald could practically hear Penelope’s perfectly-coiffed head tilting in confusion.

“…Right away, Mr. Sterling,” she finally said, her voice strained with the effort of ignoring the inexplicable.

Reginald leaned back in his leather chair, his heart hammering a frantic, atonal rhythm against his ribs. He tried to rationalize it. A transient ischemic attack? A momentary, stress-induced aphasia with a curiously specific, scatological theme? He cleared his throat and tried an experiment.

“The quality of mercy is not strained,” he recited softly to his ficus plant. The words were clear, crisp, Shakespearean. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was a fluke. He continued, “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody.”

It happened again. The phrase latched onto the end of his speech like a linguistic remora, a foul, barnacle-like appendage to his otherwise flawless elocution. A cold dread, colder and more dreadful than a negative earnings report, seeped into his bones. This was not a fluke. This was a condition. A curse. An absurdist, existential predicament of the highest, or rather, lowest order.

Just then, his office door swung open. In swaggered Jack Walker, a man whose ambition was matched only by the vapidity of his insights.

“Reggie, old boy!” Jack boomed, plopping into the chair opposite the desk. “Heard you’re heading up the Düsseldorf deal. Big one. Hope you’ve got the stomach for it.”

Reginald regarded Jack with the cool disdain of a philosopher observing a particularly simple-minded mollusc. “Mr Walker, your grasp of corporate finance is, as ever, breathtakingly naive. The Düsseldorf acquisition is not about ‘stomach,’ it’s a nuanced play of leveraged assets and cultural integration. It requires a scalpel, not a cudgel. Your thinking is so linear it could be used to tile a bathroom. I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody.”

Jack’s smug grin faltered. His eyes, small and piggy, darted around the room as if searching for a hidden camera. “What… what did you just say?”

“I was explicating the manifold complexities of transnational mergers,” Reginald said, his mind racing. He had to control this, to deny it. But the more he spoke, the more inevitable the foul conclusion became. “It’s an epistemological tightrope walk, you see. I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody.”

Jack stared, a slow, malicious smile spreading across his face. He had found a chink in Reginald’s armor. A very, very weird chink. “Right. Well. Good luck with that, Reggie.” He scurried out of the office, visibly vibrating with fresh gossip.

The ten o’clock meeting was the main event. In the boardroom sat Herr Schmidt and his two lieutenants, Klaus and Dieter. They were formidable Germans from the Düsseldorf firm, men who valued precision, punctuality, and a complete lack of emotional incontinence.

Reginald, armed with a laser pointer and a brain firing on all cylinders, was magnificent. He wove a narrative of synergy and growth, a tapestry of financial projections so beautiful it could have hung in the Louvre. He deconstructed market anxieties, parried logistical concerns, and painted a future so bright, so profitable, that the Germans were visibly thawing. Herr Schmidt, a man whose face was a monument to sternness, even allowed a corner of his mouth to twitch upwards.

“And so,” Reginald concluded, stepping away from the screen, his arms open in a gesture of triumphant finality, “you can see that this is not merely an acquisition. It is a synthesis. A fusion of German efficiency and Anglo-Saxon dynamism that will create a new titan of industry, a veritable colossus bestriding the global market. The potential is not just significant; it is transcendent.”

The Germans nodded in unison. The deal was his. He had done it. He beamed, a feeling of pure, unadulterated victory washing over him.

“I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody.”

The silence that followed was not just a lack of sound. It was an active, malevolent entity that sucked the very air from the room. Herr Schmidt’s monocle, which Reginald had assumed was a permanent fixture, fell from his eye and clattered onto the polished table. 

Reginald did not blink. He simply bowed his head – once, regally – then gathered his notes with the solemnity of a man accepting exile. The Germans rose. No one spoke.

Two weeks later, Reginald Sterling was on the cover of Forbes. 

Jack Walker’s attempt to leak the boardroom incident had backfired spectacularly. Instead of seeing a man losing his mind, the market saw a disruptive genius shattering corporate platitudes. His affliction was now hailed as a paradigm of authentic communication. 

At a press conference celebrating the finalized Düsseldorf deal, a reporter asked for the secret to his success. Reginald smiled serenely. “It is simply a matter of ruthless focus and unwavering belief in your core strategy. I just shat my pants. Don’t tell anybody. They already know.” 

The room erupted in applause.

Zillowtopia

“BRING ME LEBRON! HURRY UP, STU!” Stacey Schmaltzberg screams at her husband while her fingers work furiously inside her purple cotton panties. She leans back in her leather office chair and stares through squinted eyes at the laptop computer perched on the desk in front of her.

“Cavs, Heat or Lakers?” Stuart Schmaltzberg asks eagerly, standing behind Stacey in their home office.

“I don’t care what team, Stu! JUST GET ME MY FUCKING LEBRON!” Stacey shouts while her fingers pick up speed.

“Okay,” Stu replies as he hurries through the office door. “But I have to go to the garage and get the dolly, so it may take a few minutes.”

Stacey eases into a steady rhythm and bites down on her lip with her eyes closed. After a few moments, she opens her eyes and stares back at the laptop screen, where a Zillow.com web page reads, “Zestimate: $775,000,” under her Boca Raton property address. Stacey parts her lips and moans softly, then closes her eyes and slides her fingers in deeper.

“OK peaches, I got your man!” Stu announces excitedly as he pushes a small handtruck into the office. Strapped to the handtruck is “Lebron” – a 6’8” dark brown thermoplastic elastomer male sex doll wearing a red basketball jersey with a gold number 23 printed on front. Lebron is naked from the waist down with a fully-erect penis. Stu quickly unstraps Lebron from the handtruck, then lays him on his back in the middle of the carpeted office floor. He looks up at Stacey with a smile and exclaims, “Bring it on, showgirl!”

Stacey pushes up from her chair, slides off her panties, then hurries over to Lebron and steps over him so she’s straddling him with her feet planted on either side of his bare hips. She bends her knees and descends toward a sitting position as she grabs Lebron’s long thick shaft. But she stops mid-squat and looks up angrily at Stu. “He’s dry as a desert, Stu! Lebron is supposed to be self-lubricating! I can’t dry-dock this fucking Clydesdale!”

Stu stammers, “Sorry, hon, but his lube ran out after the Cohens’ pool party last month and I forgot to replace it. But I can go get Mad Max or Conan or Elon. They’re all fully-lubed and ready to go.”

“For fuck’s sake, Stuart!” Stacey screams as she sits down on Lebron’s thighs, still holding his shaft. “Just go get the Uber from the bathroom. And hurry up!” Stacey starts to grind her crotch against Lebron’s muscular thigh.

“What Uber? Why do we need an Uber?” Stu asks in confusion.

“The Uberlube, you fucking moron! It’s sex lubricant, Stu! It’s in my medicine cabinet next to the Voltaren. Now hurry up!” Stacey shouts as she grinds harder against Lebron’s thigh.

Stu runs off to the bathroom and returns seconds later holding a small plastic bottle. He quickly uncaps the bottle, bends over and squeezes clear lubricant onto Lebron’s protruding penis, then uses his other hand to spread it around evenly.

Stacey grabs the bottle out of Stu’s hand, squeezes some lube out onto her fingertips, then reaches down and rubs her fingers between her open thighs. She raises to a kneel and moves herself over the head of Lebron’s penis, then slides down his shaft until her pale, flabby, cellulitic butt cheeks rest on his upper thighs. She rips a loud fart against Lebron’s testicles.

“Help me get going, Stu,” she says to her husband as she leans forward and places her hands on Lebron’s broad shoulders. Stu sits down on Lebron’s knees behind Stacey, then presses his hands against her bare butt cheeks with a gentle shove to move her up Lebron’s shaft. Stacey begins to ride Lebron and moan, “Ohhh fuck, Lebron.”

Stu stands up while Stacey speeds up her rhythm. She squeezes Lebron’s jersey in her fists while she rocks back and forth, spewing out loud open-mouthed grunts. After a few moments, she tries to turn over onto her back with Lebron’s penis still inside her but is unable to complete the pivot. 

“Help me, Stu! Fucking help me here!” Stacey yells out.

“Are you going reverse cowgirl?” Stu asks.

Stacey stares up at him incredulously. “Really, Stu? Does this look like a reverse fucking cowgirl? Now get over here and flip us, goddammit!”

Stu hurries over and hoists Lebron over on top of his wife while she lies flat on her back. She bends her knees while Lebron’s bare hips and thick-muscled butt part her thighs. 

“Oh Jesus, I strained my back again!” Stu yelps out, grabbing his lower back.

“Fuck your back, Stu! I’m so close right now I just need you to push him so I can finish off!” Stacey pleads from beneath Lebron. “And you should have sprung for the electric hip thrusters if you were so worried about your back, you cheap bastard!”

“It would’ve cost an extra $500 and we were trying to save for Jonah’s bar—”

“Just shut the fuck up and push that black ass for me, you goddamn tightwad!”

Despite the sharp pain ripping through his back, with tears welling up in his eyes, Stu kneels down and clenches Lebron’s butt cheeks with both hands, then thrusts Lebron’s hips back and forth between Stacey’s thighs while her moans intensify. “Oh yes, oh yes, oh my Jesus fucking YES!”

Stacey’s moans become one continuous high-pitched wail while Stu’s back pain escalates with each forward thrust – a sharp dagger piercing through to his spine. 

“Ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-ohh-fuckkkkk!” Stacey belts out, bucking her hips until she climaxes in one final scream, “AHGHHHHH!” Completely exhausted, she gasps in air as her body tension releases and she collapses back to the floor. “Okay, Okay, Okay,” she pants.

His back on fire with excruciating pain, Stu collapses forward onto Lebron – causing his full body weight to push Lebron down onto his wife.

“Get off me, Stu, you’re crushing me! I can barely breathe, now get the fuck up!” Stacey shouts from beneath Lebron.

With his last ounce of energy, Stu pushes himself up and rolls over onto his back next to Stacey and Lebron, breathing heavily with his hand on his chest. “Oh my God, I think I’m having a heart attack,” Stu groans painfully. 

Ignoring her husband, Stacey pushes Lebron off of her while sweat pours down her pudgy red face, streaming over her loose jowels and down her neck. “Get me a towel, Stu,” she says as she catches her breath. “I’m sweating like a pig.”  

Stu doesn’t answer, lying flat on his back with his hand pressed to his chest, breathing slowly with his eyes pinched shut and face twisted in pain.

Stacey sits up and her soft gut laps over her pelvis, settling in just above a thick patch of gray pubic hair. She takes a deep breath, then stands up and hobbles to the bathroom while Stu remains in a prostrate position on the floor.

After toweling off and putting her clothes back on, Stacey steps over Stu and Lebron, then plops down heavily into her office chair. She refreshes the laptop screen and types something into the Google search query box. She selects a website and looks at it quickly, then picks up her phone.

“Hello, you’ve reached Home Equity Hunks, South Florida’s leading home equity lender, making all your financial dreams come true,” says an automated voice on the phone. “If you’re an existing customer, press or say 1. If you’re a new customer, press or say 2.” Stacey presses 2 on her dial pad and the automated voice continues, “If you’d like to hear options for a new—” Stacey presses 0 before the voice can finish. After a brief pause, the voice resumes, “I’m sorry, but—”

Stacey interrupts the automated voice, frantically screaming into her phone, “Operator! Human being! I WANT A LIVE FUCKING PERSON!”

“Please hold for a dedicated loan hunk,” the automated voice says.

“Oh Jesus, hurry the fuck up,” Stacey groans. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

After about thirty seconds of soft hold music, a live voice pipes up, “This is Chaz Beaumont, loan hunk number 028746. And whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?”

Stacey says her name and asks, “I sent my loan application in yesterday morning and still haven’t heard back. What’s going on?”

Chaz replies, “Ma’am, the loan review process typically takes at least ten to twelve business days, and then—”

“I don’t have that much time!” Stacey shouts. “My daughter’s summer camp tuition is due in a few days, and then we have to buy our plane tickets to Paris. I need the money now!”

“I understand, Mrs. Schmaltzberg, but this is a regulated process and we—” 

Stacey cuts him off. “I have the new Zillow valuation for our house – $775,000 – it’s got more than enough equity for another fifty thousand cashout. This ain’t my first rodeo, Chaz.”

“Well ma’am, I’ll see if I can get the review process accelerated for you but I’ll need some basic information first. What’s the total mortgage debt on your house, ma’am?”

Stacey pauses, then mumbles, “About $520,000.”

“And how much did you buy the house for, ma’am?”

After another pause, Stacey answers, “$310,000 about fifteen years ago, but Zillow says it’s worth almost $800,000 now.”

“Well you’re obviously no stranger to home equity loans,” Chaz chuckles. “Have you borrowed from Home Equity Hunks in the past, ma’am?”

“No,” Stacey answers irritably. “We used another home equity lender for the first two loans, then Cashout Studs for the third one. But we can’t—”

“Don’t tell him about the Loan Depot assault charge and restraining order,” Stu whispers into Stacey’s ear, having risen from the floor to join her at the phone. “It might disqualify us.”

“And your annual household income, ma’am?” Chaz asks methodically.

Stacey answers, “Well it fluctuates since my husband is in between jobs right now, but—”  

“For now you can just tell me the adjusted gross income number on your last tax return, ma’am,” Chaz responds flatly.

After a long pause, Stacey mumbles, “About $85,000.”

“And what do you do for a living, ma’am?” Chaz asks.

“I’m a legal assistant at a foreclosure defense law firm, and a sales associate at Bloomingdale’s in Boca Town Center on weekends and holidays,” Stacey replies.

“Let me put you on a brief hold while I speak to my manager, ma’am,” Chaz says.

Stacey looks over at Stu with a scowl. “If we don’t get this money, it’s your fucking fault. You’ve made about thirteen dollars in the last twenty years, Mister Mom. Apparently I missed the chapter of the fairy tale where Prince Charming quits his job and sponges off the Fairy Princess for the rest of his fucking life, Mr. Harvard MBA!”

Stu looks down in embarrassment. “Stace, please, you know I—”

Chaz is back on the line. “Thank you for holding, Mrs. Schmaltzberg. I just spoke to my manager. Unfortunately we’ll be unable to accelerate the review process for your loan application. You should receive a formal response from us within fourteen days. Now is there anything else I can help you with today, ma’am?”

“Listen to me, Chaz!” Stacey pleads, “We need – I mean NEED – this money now! Do you have children, Chaz?”

“Well, no ma’am, but—”

“Then you’ve never had to pay $50,000 for a bar mitzvah, or $15,000 each summer for Lake Winnipesaukee sleepaway camp, or $10,000 for a vacation to Europe for a family of four. Life is very expensive these days, Chaz. And we’re still the only family we know who doesn’t have a backyard pool – we have to use the fucking community pool! And we drive a seven-year old Mazda and a six-year old Honda while every time I turn around I see a brand new BMW, Mercedes or fucking Lexus. Literally everyone has one. The Schaumbergs just bought a Porsche for their sixteen year-old daughter. IT’S FUCKING EMBARRASSING, CHAZ!”

“With all due respect, Mrs. Schmaltzberg, none of those things sound like real necessities. Just some friendly advice, ma’am, maybe you should try living within—”

“FUCK YOU, CHAZ! You know nothing about me! I work like a dog, two jobs—”

“Goodbye, ma’am.” The line goes silent.

“Asshole!” Stacey screams into the phone, then glares at Stu, “Go get the firepower, Stu, we’re going into battle mode.”

“But hon, we can’t have another Loan Depot situation. We’re lucky we didn’t go to jail over that. We need to think of the kids.”

“Fuck Loan Depot, fuck Home Equity Hunks, fuck the fucking kids!” Stacey shouts. “Now go get ready and meet me at the car in ten minutes! Move your ass, Stuart!”

Stacey takes a deep breath, looks in the hallway mirror and composes herself, then  walks out the front door.

Jodi Simon, the Schmaltzbergs’ nextdoor neighbor, stands at the edge of her yard as Stacey hurries down the driveway to her car. “Oh hey, Stacey!” she shouts. “Does Jonah know where he’s going to college next year? Rachel has it narrowed down to Duke, Emory and Vandy – still trying to decide.”

Stacey smiles over at Jodi. “Jonah got into those ones plus UF, Miami and a few more. But we’re so overwhelmed getting ready for our trip to Paris next month and then Leah starting at American Heritage after she gets back from sleepaway camp in New Hampshire, we just haven’t had time to even breathe let alone think about his college plans right now.”

“Wow!” Jodi replies, “American Heritage just raised its tuition to over forty thousand. You guys must be doing pretty well.”

Stacey nods with a smile and humble shoulder shrug. “Well, Stu’s hedge fund is doing okay I guess. I don’t know anything about that money of finance stuff but apparently it’s paying the bills.”

Before Jodi can say anything else, Stacey turns to her car and says, “Sorry Jodes, gotta go – late for one of Stu’s work things – but let’s catch up soon. Bye!”

Nosy little bitch, Stacey thinks as she steps into the car, shutting the door behind her as Jodi waves and then turns back to her yard.

Waiting in the passenger seat, Stacey looks down at her phone and shakes with fury, squeezing it so hard that her knuckles turn white, at the Facebook post staring back and boring into her skull. As soon as Stu opens the driver-side door and steps into the car, she sticks her phone into his face and shouts, “Look at this! The Silvermans are in fucking Barcelona to celebrate Ethan getting into Miami! We need that money, Stu! We need it fucking now!”

When they arrive at the Home Equity Hunks corporate headquarters, occupying the entire top floor of a high-rise office building in downtown West Palm Beach, Stacey hurries into the lobby clutching her Zillow printout with Stu in tow. “I need to speak with a senior loan officer immediately – it’s an emergency!” sheey says to the office receptionist.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist replies in confusion. “Do you have an appointment, ma’am?”

“No but I’m sure a loan officer will want to speak with us when I show him this appraisal,” Stacey says proudly, holding the Zillow report out in front of her.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll need to make an appointment if you’d like to meet with a loan officer. You can do so on our website. This is a private office and—”

“Well where the fuck am I supposed to go in the meantime, lady?” Stacey screams. “Back to the house with no pool? With shitty little cars in the driveway? What kind of life is that?”

The receptionist presses a button on her desk phone and speaks into her headset. “I need you guys in the lobby, Steve, we got another live one out here.”

Stacey turns to Stu and reaches her hand out. “Time for Plan B, Stu. Give it to me.”

On command, Stu reaches into his black trenchcoat and pulls out an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. “Uh Stace, maybe we should just—“

“Stop whining and give me the goddamn gun, numbnuts!” Stacey says as she grabs the AR-15 out of Stu’s hand.

The receptionist stands up from her chair with her eyes wide and mouth half open. Her head is blown apart before she can scream. Blood, brain and skull fragments splatter the wall behind her as Stacey’s (still smelly) finger rapidly works the AR-15 trigger. Stacey heads toward the door leading from the lobby to the interior offices.

Two armed security guards enter the lobby from the interior door with their guns drawn. Stacey mows them down with her AR-15 before they have time to react. They drop to the floor like flour sacks, their bloodied bodies riddled with bullets. Stacey steps over them and walks through the door.

AR-15 blazing, Stacey marches down the hallway and into the individual offices along the way, shooting anything that moves. Rapid gunfire followed by horrific screams fill the air as the body count piles up. Employees hide behind office furniture and cower in corners while Stacey continues her bloody rampage, screaming with a maniacal grin as her AR-15 fires off two rounds per second. Stu trails her, finishing off any survivors with a Glock 9 millimeter.

“Please, no!” Vern Cromwell, CEO of Home Equity Hunks, pleads from behind his leather office sofa after Stacey enters his corner office from the hallway. “Please, ma’am, put the gun down! Just tell me what you want!”

Keeping her AR-15 trained on Cromwell, Stacey removes the folded Zillow report from her front pocket and tosses it onto his desk. “Our house was worth 775K as of this morning. It’s probably worth over 800 by now, maybe 825. We just need a little home equity cashout.”

Cromwell unfolds the Zillow report with shaking hands and studies it briefly through his reading glasses. “What do you owe on the house and what’s your annual income?” he asks without looking up.

Stacey tells him.

Cromwell looks up at Stacey, then over at Stu, who’s just entered the office from the hallway. Cromwell raises his eyebrows and laughs. “Sorry but are you two fucking idiots? I mean, I thought I’d seen everything in this business, but you two morons have the financial intelligence of a mentally retarded billygoat!”

Stacey’s AR-15 clicks empty when she pulls the trigger to shoot Cromwell. “Get me more ammo, Stu!” she shouts behind her.

While Stu fumbles through his trenchcoat searching for an ammo clip, Stacey looks down at her phone. Horrified by what she sees, she throws the phone against the wall with a blood-curdling scream. She leans back against the wall and collapses to the floor, lowering her face into her hands as her body rocks with violent sobs.

“What’s wrong, poodle?” Stu asks. “I can’t find the extra clip, maybe we left it in—”

“Forget the ammo and just look at my fucking phone!” Stacey wails from the floor, pointing to her phone.

Stu picks up the phone and squints at its cracked screen. “I can’t see – what is it, peaches?”

“The Teitelbaums just bought a fucking plane! A FUCKING PLANE, Stuart! I just saw it on Deborah’s Instagram.” Stacey tilts her head back and closes her eyes. “Just kill me now,” she mutters.

“So what, Stace? Since when do you want a plane? We can’t even fly one.” Stu replies with genuine confusion.

“It doesn’t matter, Stu. Can’t you see that it doesn’t … fucking … matter!” Stacey cries out while shaking her head. 

Stu and Vern Cromwell watch Stacey silently, neither moving an inch.

Stacey thinks for a moment, then looks up at Stu. “My life insurance money – that’s it!” In one fluid motion, she grabs the AR-15 from the floor (forgetting that it’s empty), sticks the muzzle into her mouth and presses down on the trigger. The gun clicks empty.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but most life insurance policies have a two-year suicide exception,” Cromwell explains. “When did you buy the policy?”

“About ten years ago,” Stacey replies. After a brief pause, she asks, “What floor is this?”

“Fifteenth floor, ma’am,” Cromwell answers.

“And that window – is it shatterproof?” Stacey asks, pointing to the floor-to-ceiling window wall.

“I don’t believe so,” Cromwell replies with a chuckle. “But I’ve never tried to find out.”

Before Cromwell or Stu can stop her, Stacey lowers her head and runs toward the window. From a full sprint, she dives at it headfirst from just two feet away. Wait’ll Deb Teitelbaum sees the new yacht we’re gonna buy with this money, Stacey thinks, smiling to herself as she launches. Stupid bitch’ll probably jump out the window.

Plugged

Standing behind her desk, Miranda wondered if students noticed that her gait had changed, even her tone of voice. Earlier she had locked herself in the washroom cubicle, took the package and lubricant out of her briefcase, followed the instructions, inserted the well-greased plug into her ass, wincing when it pushed through the sphincter, pulled up her panties, waited as she adjusted to the sensations, flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and then walking slowly, entered the classroom down the hall, three minutes late. Clenching her buttocks, she didn’t want it dislodged at inopportune moments.

A student sat in the front row, legs spread wide apart to give prominence to his crotch, the white statement in English on his black T-shirt loud and clear: MANWHORE. While Frida at the back of the class read out a passage in her halting English from the assigned story, Miranda wondered what the term meant and how it applied to Reinhardt. Did the youth sell his body? With his Germanic good looks and muscularity, he’d probably have customers lined up. His huge muscles were the most noticeable feature about him, and he wore clothes like the skin-tight T-shirt to draw attention to them. Reinhardt also drove a black muscle car to school, all noise and power; a fuck machine, really. The boys and girls couldn’t resist and Reinhardt knew it. Miranda privately admitted that she wasn’t immune to the student’s charisma. She fantasized about the student fucking her on the desk, her cunt thrumming and clenching around his cock. 

But the T-shirt seemed blatant and rude, even in this age of sartorial provocations. Really, discretion and appropriateness were obsolete notions for these students. Not that she should talk about appropriate behaviour, given the butt plug slipping in her anal canal every time she took a step. Miranda couldn’t quite describe the feeling aside from the fact that she liked the pressure, the up-and-down movement, and images of being tied down, maybe, or panting on her hands and knees and getting fucked by a student. Oh, it would hurt…at first…she had to prepare for the inevitable. Then she brought herself back from fantasyland to the blackboard and fluorescent lighting of a classroom smelling of student sweat and indifference.

With difficulty, Frida finished the passage. Miranda knew that Reinhardt had slept with Frida who wanted to be his regular girlfriend, but Reinhardt regarded love and romance as traps. She certainly knew the lad’s opinions. Fucking was great; guys needed to play, didn’t matter who their partner was; everything was permissible; it was all cool. Sex was nothing more than fun and games unless you wanted kids. Everyone should have fun; blowjobs were necessary, Reinhardt had written in his student journal, or words to that effect. Rough play, also great. The assigned topic was “Love and Sex” in a story of their choice, total freedom of expression allowed. Horny Reinhardt’s entry had startled Miranda awake from the semi-narcoleptic state she fell into when reading student papers. Reinhardt had simply used the story as a jumping-off point to write about his own sex life: about how much he loved shooting his load every day anywhere with anyone; a blowjob a day, at least one, even in the college library; fucking older teachers even, confessions which Miranda suspected the boy had pumped up like his arm muscles. Why? To impress her? To slip his cock into her cunt?

According to his journal, Reinhardt the MANWHORE (was that not also an insulting term?) had already fucked three or four girls and a couple of boys in the class. Everyone knew some professors slept with their students, but unless the students complained, no one else did, aside from the standard clucking of tongues and envious whispers behind their backs. Did Reinhardt ever use butt plugs? Could she safely ask that question?

Her students skittering with hormonal energy, immersed in the entertainment and advertising world of sex, Miranda wondered how they concentrated on physics labs and English essays when cocks crowed and cunts glistened. She struggled to attach herself to the moment, to keep from drifting away in reverie like a canoe broken loose from its mooring, to cut the ties here, to sever herself him from her inauthentic life. She sat down, if only to keep the plug in. Her master Kurt had bought it and commanded Miranda to conduct her last class with the device plugging her ass. Why should she plug herself? Miranda had protested, answered by Kurt’s slap across her face and mocking: like you don’t know, bitch. Just do it. Yes, she had obeyed, for obedience and submission thrilled her, and it seemed natural to follow master Kurt’s orders. And now, the plug secured all the way up, her buttocks clenched and unclenched and clenched again. Kurt had borrowed her car for the day after dropping her off at school in the morning, and Miranda would meet him in the parking lot after class. 

Time dragged. Some days she didn’t think she could go through the routine anymore. Before meeting Kurt, her sense of dying by increments had been tangible, and she would have died having lived an ordinary, unmemorable life. Liberation offered by Kurt and his  electric allure beckoned and led her into a new, transcendent life. She shifted on the seat, feeling the plug like a cock in her ass. Kurt had promised it would happen. Patience.

Kurt broke into and took over her tedious life. Electrons sizzled in the atmosphere. The leaden sky cracked and sunlight roared through. Wear the plug; it’s a start, bitch. Your ass needs training and a good fuck like any cunt. And so now she was practicing, getting ready. Yes, after showering this morning, directing the full force of the spray up her anal canal, although she didn’t think it could be as effective in cleaning it as an enema, she had inserted the butt plug, involuntarily gasping as the bulbous part squeezed past the sphincter, and pushed gently until all five flexible inches snuggled in her rectum. The flange at the end prevented it from going up any farther. Before dressing for school and driving to Kurt’s place she removed it, washed it, and promised Kurt that she would insert the plug again before class. He seemed annoyed and threatened punishment, which made her cunt wet, but he said this time it was okay. As long as it was in her ass when he picked her up later. 

Miranda knew there would be a larger plug after this one had served its purpose for a week or more, and after that conditioning, something larger still, and ultimately the real thing. A heavily-veined, bulbous headed throbbing cock. Like a soldier, Kurt had said, preparation and readiness were everything. Miranda imagined the size of Reinhardt’s cock; it grew impossibly large, like a horse cock, and her heart beat faster over the thought of it breaking into her like a stallion mounting a mare in heat. Not ideas she should be thinking about during class, she admonished herself. Of course, Kurt’s dick was equally admirable and she loved the feel of it in her cunt and mouth.

Miranda spoke faster, wanted time to speed up, so she could exit the classroom and meet Kurt in the teacher’s parking lot. They would drive back to the apartment and pass an hour or so together before Kurt left for the armory. Perhaps she would have to remove the plug and hoped the tip wouldn’t be covered in shit, knowing she’d be embarrassed in front of the soldier. She would stay at the apartment and prepare for tomorrow’s classes, watch videos, clean the tiny kitchen, and be awake when the soldier returned before midnight, and fucked and spanked her. Miranda’s mouth went dry, and she had difficulty concentrating on marking papers.

She lifted her ass off the seat imperceptibly and pushed down, as if she were fucking herself in front of the dazed students. The discomfort became mildly pleasurable. Some of the students, including Reinhardt, must have a secret life as well, special interests and games, besides ordinary fucking. Well, Reinhardt was not so secretive in his journal, but Miranda suspected more bravado there than truth. He did have muscles, though, and a bulging crotch which she couldn’t help noticing. He wrote that he wanted to star in porn films. Perhaps most of them were still too young, not yet sucked down into the bog of jobs, convenience, compromises, and pensions.

They had not experienced the randomness of death and violence like blood oozing out of smashed heads, bones splintered and crushed, or children’s limbs ripped out of their sockets, as Kurt had witnessed after the Taliban bombed a girl’s school outside Kandahar. The students’ digital gadgets connected them to nothing except mirror images of themselves. Hey, you brain-addled fuckers, Miranda could almost hear herself speaking in Kurt’s voice, connect with this: and she’d bend over, pull down her panties, and moon them with the butt plug plopping out of her ass.

“That’s it for today,” she announced, “have your journal entry written for next class. Be honest. Write whatever you think would interest me, but be true.”

Slamming books and scraping chair legs, their voices released like chattering birds, they filed out of the room, and she noticed how a group of admirers gathered around Reinhardt, the manwhore. Miranda was startled by the wink Reinhardt gave her, as if teacher and student shared intimate knowledge. In a sense, they had: allowed to write freely in their journals without fear of a teacher’s censorship and disgust, Reinhardt had been very free in his sexual confessions. Miranda had commented favourably and encouraged him to write more along the same lines. She fingered herself as she read his journal.

They had even enjoyed provocative conversations in Miranda’s office where Reinhardt, responding to her probing and questions about the entries, relaxed and spoke his mind and spread his legs wide to allow his teacher to admire his crotch, which he sometimes touched, although Miranda tried not to direct her eyes there. Reinhardt seemed willing to cross boundaries, to demolish the limits, if granted permission. Intimations slipped out with his words and flickered in his eyes. You should write more about this in your journals; Miranda had praised his frankness. Improve your English. What would Reinhardt think if he knew that his teacher, with her ass plugged, was on her way to a soldier’s apartment, a soldier who was her master? Would Reinhardt like to play with them? Would he bring Frida and would want Kurt to fuck her? Did she shave her pussy? Would Reinhardt wear leather boots? Deep-throat his professor, if Kurt gave his permission? Piss on her face and tits? The questions remained unasked, but Miranda still hoped for answers. All boundaries splintered and shattered ever since she met and submitted to Kurt. The word enslavement seemed to be more and more accurate, and Miranda whispered it like a confession of love.

She fancied taking risks with Reinhardt the manwhore. Ask the youth openly: have you ever thought about fucking me? Rumours abounded. She had heard about one or two colleagues sexually involved with Reinhardt. That Reinhardt was into anything. Did he dominate them? Did they submit willingly and joyously? Do you get boners in class? Is your cum heavy and luscious like Kurt’s? Maybe she should introduce the two. After collecting her things from his office and stuffing her brief case with student papers, Miranda stepped out and the butt plug slipped; she could feel it pop out of the sphincter. She reached behind and touched the flange of the plug inside her panties: yes, it was slipping out. She pushed it back in. 

Two hours max, the instructions said, at the beginning. It was a flesh-toned acrylic plug, shaped like an arrowhead, smooth and round, but tapered so the narrow part slipped past the sphincter with least resistance, discomfort beginning as the thicker part squeezed in. 

In the parking lot, Kurt had his arm outside the driver’s window, flicking a cigarette. Once she sat in the car and buckled, the butt plug secured against slippage, Kurt took another drag before starting the engine. He wore an army-issue T-shirt and Miranda admired her master’s biceps. 

The soldier switched the gears and the car moved into the road. Miranda stared at the boot pressing the accelerator. It needed to be polished. With her tongue, if master desired. Go with the fucking flow so I flow with fucking, Miranda recalled words from Reinhardt’s journal. Kurt squeezed her knee, and looked directly at him.

“You wearing it like I told you?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Good. You can play with it in your ass while I’m driving. You have my permission, bitch.”

Miranda clasped her hands, the butt sliding up as she pushed down on the seat, and nodded yes; she was doing what the soldier allowed her to do. She worked her buttocks, slowly fucking herself. An image of Reinhardt’s heavily-muscled arms holding the wheel of his car, the famous fuck machine, blocked out any compunctions. Lifting and lowering her ass, up and down as if she was actually fucking herself on Reinhardt’s relentless horse cock, feeling it, feeling it, getting used to it, and then Kurt replaced him and trained her like a recruit. As Kurt drove to his apartment, she imagined Reinhardt unbuckling his belt, pulling down his jeans, bending his professor over the hood of his muscle car and plugging her ass with his horse cock, plugging it with her master Kurt’s permission. Kurt gripped Miranda’s thigh and squeezed. She began breathing heavily and moaning. He blew smoke out with the words: 

“You’ll always belong to me, bitch. Keep fucking yourself.”