The Housemistress (12 page)

Rylie pulls Carriveau’s finger out of her mouth with a pop. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you, before I even knew who you were.” She places both hands on Carriveau’s waist, drawing her reluctant Housemistress closer. “There was never any doubt.”

She leans in for the smooch, lips grazing lips, Carriveau neither encouraging nor blocking her advance, but then …

Footsteps.

Chatter.

Hungry sixth formers are descending for breakfast, and Carriveau withdraws. Much too late to do anything about it—to offer comfort or concern—Rylie notices tears in her beautiful Housemistress’s eyes. Did she cause that? Are the tears for her? Or Kaitlyn? Or something else entirely? What just happened?

Carriveau makes a hasty retreat to her study, leaving Rylie confused and conflicted, worried that she’s locked herself away to cry. Fortunately, when she emerges at the last minute for her routine uniform inspections and kisses goodbye, she looks perfectly composed.

Rylie ends up at the back of the line again, but on purpose this time. Ever hopeful that Carriveau might give her a little something extra, she likes to be the last one out of the house. Not that she’s ever received anything more than the standard peck on the forehead, mind you, and this morning proves to be no exception.

She receives her usual goodbye and leaves without fuss, but halfway down the garden path, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Marching back to the house, she follows Carriveau into her study and finds her standing in front of her desk, gathering up test papers.

The thud of a backpack hitting the floor alerts Carriveau to Rylie’s presence, but leaves her little time to react to it.

“I’m sorry,” Rylie offers in advance.

“
Pour quoi faire
?” Carriveau looks shocked. “What for?”

“This.” Rylie lunges at her, kissing her on the lips before she knows it’s coming.

The closed-mouth kiss is so forceful that Carriveau is shoved back against her desk, almost knocked completely off her feet, test papers scattering to the floor. She brings a hand up to push Rylie back, but by the time she makes contact with her overly enthusiastic suitor, she’s lost all inclination to do so.

“I know what I want.” Rylie breaks the kiss and holds her unsteady Housemistress upright. “
J’ai envie de toi, Mademoiselle Carriveau
.” She tenders another quick peck, keeping her hands in place until she’s sure Carriveau can keep herself on her feet. “I want
you
.”

Following that confident proclamation, she spins on her heels, grabs her backpack off the floor, and exits the house, leaving Carriveau struck dumb.

When Miss Ansell passes by Carriveau’s study a few minutes later, not much has changed. Carriveau is still propped against her desk, breathing erratically, test papers strewn about her feet.

“Are you feeling okay?” Miss Ansell raises a questioning eyebrow.

Carriveau snaps herself out of her stupor. “
Oui
.”

“What happened?”

“I …” Carriveau gets down on her knees, collecting her papers. “I felt dizzy for a moment, that’s all.
Ce n’est pas grave
.” She waves the incident off as nothing serious.

“Are you sick?”

“Maybe.” Carriveau takes a deep breath, fearful of her emotions spilling out all over the place. “In one way or another.”

Carriveau strides into her Year Twelve French classroom with no hint of a smile, lesson notes and homework cradled in one arm.

“
Asseyez-vous
,” she orders them to sit, snapping her fingers to urge speed as she dumps her books and papers onto her desk with a loud smack.

She’s in a bad mood, that much is obvious. For the next sixty minutes, she barks out instructions and reprimands, picking on every minor fault, offering few pleasantries and little encouragement. She refuses to make eye contact with Rylie, even when Rylie puts up her hand with a genuine answer to a question, and her interactions with the other students are noticeably more brusque than usual.

After a while, Rylie gives up, her own demeanor turning sour. By the time the bell rings, she’s in a downright miserable mood and is keen to get out of the classroom, keeping her eyes to herself as she walks past Carriveau’s desk on her way to the door.

It’s lunchtime, but since she’s neither inclined to be sociable in the refectory, nor run the risk of bumping into Carriveau at the house, she opts to mope. For the most part, that means wandering aimlessly around school property, discovering new places where one could hide and smoke, and mapping out more shortcuts to and from her classes.

Along the way, she finds a room that wasn’t included in the grand tour Souliere had taken her on when she first arrived. Normally completely locked off, the main doors to this enormous room are plastered with ‘Do Not Enter’ signs, and all Souliere told her was that it used to be a performance hall, but that it’d been off-limits for the past year.

Today, one of the back doors is ajar. Peering in, Rylie can see that it leads to a darkened backstage area filled with old props, abandoned costumes, and a few spools of manila rope used in the rigging system above the stage. A cleaner’s cart is pushed to the side, the bright yellow mop bucket still steaming.

Guessing she has a few minutes to explore before the cleaner comes back and catches her trespassing, she slips inside. Amidst the junk—including an old stagecoach from a production of Cinderella, a balcony from which Juliet might call down to her Romeo, and an enormous wooden cross from Jesus Christ Superstar—there’s a wall dedicated to cast and crew photographs from past productions.

Using the flashlight on her phone to get a better look, Rylie scans through the pictures, surprised to find Carriveau in several of them. Dressed in casual wear—jeans and a t-shirt in some shots, jeans and a simple cotton blouse in others—she seems much more relaxed than Rylie’s so far known her to be around others. Although she usually dresses down on the weekends, Rylie’s yet to see her in something as informal as a t-shirt; the weather’s simply not warm enough.

Not only that, but she looks happy. Really happy. In a handful of pictures, she’s even wearing her hair down, her dark mane cascading over her shoulders, completely unfettered

“Wow,” Rylie mumbles to herself.

There are other recognizable faces in the pictures, too. She spots Adel Edwards, and Gabby, and a few others that she’s come to know over the last few weeks, as well as a familiar-looking blonde: Kaitlyn Simmons. There’s even a picture of Kaitlyn and Carriveau together, their arms around each other’s waists, Carriveau pressing a kiss against the side of Kaitlyn’s head while Kaitlyn makes a kissy face for the camera.

Elsewhere, the wall is covered with graffiti. Students have signed their names in black marker pen, preserving their stamp on Larkhill for posterity, jotting down inspirational messages and well wishes to future students who might tread the boards here. Amongst the mess of scrawls, there’s a black heart with the letters KS and VC inside it.

Kaitlyn Simmons and Vivienne Carriveau? Really? Rylie dismisses it and moves on. Thousands of students have come and gone from this school; those initials could belong to anybody. Indeed, there are many more hearts scattered about, memorializing a plethora of other romances, some angrily scrubbed out.

She dumps her backpack on the floor at the edge of the stage and approaches a piano-shaped mound covered by a tarp. Sure enough, when she flings back the moth-eaten canvas cloak, she unveils a grand piano in pristine condition.

Lifting the fallboard, she plinks a few keys, determines that it’s still in tune, then sits down on the piano stool and begins to play, despite the risk of being caught. She starts off with a funeral dirge, but soon tires of it and moves into something much more upbeat: a song she wrote herself, in fact.

She’s well into the middle of it before she senses movement in the periphery of her vision. She stops playing mid-keystroke and looks up, prepared to spout a hurried apology to the cleaner and make a swift exit, but it’s not the cleaner standing at the edge of the stage next to her backpack, it’s Carriveau.

“Continue,” Carriveau prompts her. “
S’il te plaît
.”

She looks softer now than she did in the classroom, and Rylie obliges, playing the song out to its completion.

After the last note fades, “How did you know where to find me?”

“I didn’t.” Carriveau steps forward. “I heard music and came to admonish whichever unruly pupil had snuck in here to mess about.”

“Am I in trouble?” Rylie keeps her eyes on the keys, tiptoeing her fingers over them.

“
Non, ma chérie
.” Carriveau walks around the piano. “Did you compose that yourself?”

Rylie nods, self-conscious.

“Why aren’t you enrolled in music classes?”

“My parents think it’s a waste of time.” Rylie lowers the fallboard, covering the ivories.

“But you’re so talented.” Carriveau budges her over with a wiggle of her hips and sits on the stool beside her, facing away from the piano. “Haven’t they heard you play?”

“They have, and they don’t care.” Still in a somber mood, Rylie drops her hands from the fallboard to her lap, her gaze lowering with them. “But thank you.”

“I mean it.” Carriveau reaches for one of her hands, weaving their fingers together. “I wish we had a piano in the house. You could serenade me.”

Rylie tries to smile, but it doesn’t stick. “So you’re not angry with me anymore?”

“Angry with you?”

“You barely looked at me in class.”

“How could I?” Carriveau winces, pained by the need to suppress her true feelings. “I can’t even say your name without blushing.”

“I disobeyed you this morning.” Rylie remains downcast. “You think I’m impetuous, and impatient, and—”

“I think you’re beautiful.” Carriveau hooks Rylie’s chin and turns her head. “You’re intelligent, passionate, and exuberant—too exuberant. You disobeyed me, but believe me, the only anger I feel is toward myself.”

“What for?
I
kissed
you
, not the other way around. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Carriveau laughs. “Oh, my darling, I’ve done plenty wrong.” She glances down at Rylie’s lap, the hem of her skirt riding up several inches above her knees.

Running the tip of one manicured nail from Rylie’s knee upward, she crumples the skirt, exposing the teen’s smooth, flawless skin and the scratch marks still visible from last night’s encounter in the laundry room.

“See?” She strokes her fingers over the faint pink lines, the skirt pulled so high it almost reveals Rylie’s knickers. “I’ve been misbehaving dreadfully.”

In response, Rylie parts her legs. It’s only a few inches, but the invitation couldn’t possibly be any more explicit—and Carriveau accepts it. She pushes Rylie’s legs open wider and bends to kiss the grazed skin of her upper inner thigh. Her face buried there, she murmurs with pleasure when she inhales the sweet, musky scent of Rylie’s sex.

“What are you doing to me, Rylie?” she mumbles, taking a pinch of Rylie’s flesh between her teeth, nipping gently. “
Tu me rends folle
!” She tenders one more kiss, then raises her head. “You make me crazy!”

Rylie lifts up her skirt, baring the damp gusset of her knickers, coaxing Carriveau to return her lips to work, but Carriveau closes her eyes and shies away from temptation.

“You’re making this very difficult for me. Do you realize that? I know well what you’re feeling.” She tugs on the hem of Rylie’s skirt, covering her up. “But can’t you see that you’re moving this along much too fast? Promise me that you’ll slow down. What happened this morning was just too much.”

“It was only a kiss,” Rylie protests. “I—”

“I don’t give up my kisses so easily,” Carriveau stops her. “And I don’t appreciate having them taken from me. Now”—she checks the time on Rylie’s watch—“your next class will be starting soon.” She gets up off the stool. “
Allons-y
.” She urges Rylie up. “We should go. This place is out of bounds anyway.”

“Why?” Rylie stands and straightens her skirt. “What’s wrong with it?”