The Abominable Dildo

Sophia snatches away the "severed penis," which is actually a dildo; if she could destroy that thing in her fist, she would have. For a moment, she actually thinks it's her own toy—but no, she doesn't have anything like this one. She has always preferred the shiny, metal vibrators, not this one: a red latex toy seemingly molded from an actual African-American penis. And this was clearly "planted," presumably by the same one who defaced her photo on the bulletin board.

This is an all-out war.

A millisecond ago, as soon as Randy held up the dildo, the class almost exploded in laughter. But seeing Sophia—now a fireball of unspeakable anger—shut them all up. "Who did this? Who put this thing in here?" Sophia's voice quakes.

Nobody answers. Somebody coughs in the back, but the silence is otherwise so loud it's deafening. Sophia stares at the dildo in her hand: on the side is scribbled "Property of Sophia Masterson. Please use with abandon."

With abandon. Somebody knows her English. Sophia fumes; the world implodes into a dot, then explodes into a million pieces. She storms out of the room, grinding her teeth, murder in her eyes. Unfortunate would be the first person who unwittingly appears in her path. Mr. Frome—she will pummel him to death with this dildo and stuff it in his mouth. Mrs. Latham—she'd be stabbed repeatedly, her liver plucked out and thrown to dogs. Her stride is rapid, with the gravity of resolve. In her head churn various ways to utterly destroy a person, raze to the ground an entire city, annihilate a planet, all for vengeance over this humiliation, this bullying. But so far, the halls are empty, and only the sound of her heels making that ferocious click-clack, click-clack bounce around the walls. She makes a turn and bumps into a man's perfumed chest. She looks up just as the owner of that chest looks down. Brad Silverstone. Instantly, his face breaks into a wide smile on recognizing her. His eyes look down and see what's in her hand; his brow knits in confusion.

"Hey, is that what I think it is?"

"Get out of my fucking way." She soldiers on; her inner thoughts about death and destruction resume.

"Hey!" Brad tails behind her. "Hey! Where are you going? Can we talk? About last night?"

Sophia strides on wordlessly. She passes by the bulletin board, and in an instant, she rips her defaced photo off the board. The dildo in one hand and the photo on the other, Sophia storms on with the unlikely gait of someone double her size—she's that angry.

"Hey!" Brad's voice tapers and fizzes out in her smoldering wake.

She ignores him; she gazes ahead: she sees the blood-soaked future, decapitated heads, a trail of corpses, and—

"I'm sorry." Brad's hand on her shoulder, and she couldn't resist swinging around. Brad's I'm so sorry hangdog look in all its heart-melting splendor. Yet, it's all so confusing—why is it so important for Brad Silverstone to apologize for something he did not do? Nothing happened last night at Fastidio's that Brad wasn't supposed to do. He is the toast of the town, the prince in his own harem, so why this? Why all this I'm so sorry bullshit?

"Can we start again?" he says. She discovers how breath-taking it is to see Brad trying to appear like an ordinary human. But she must stand by her outrage.

"Can't you fucking—pardon me—see I'm so busy?" She holds up both her hands to make the point.

Brad's Adam's apple goes up and down. He attempts to mitigate the situation. "For a teacher, you curse like a sailor."

Sophia's patience flies out the window. She hyperventilates. She swings around and stomps down the hallway.

The formerly human Brad is now a puppy, trailing behind a very pissed-off woman. "Hey, I'm sorry. Miss Masterson! Sophia!"

Sophia doesn't even bother knocking on the school principal's door. No liver left for niceties. Principal Yasuhiro, anyway, is one of Derek's friends. Yasuhiro's friendship with her husband had been crucial in securing this teaching job at Camden High School, and she has always considered him like a kindly uncle. But even so, barging right in the middle of what looks like a meeting—there's Carol, Guy Mendes, Mr. Pope and Mrs. Reyes in an animated discussion, the tail-end of which sounds like they're talking about the upcoming interschool regional sports competition—plants Sophia right where she's standing. All heads turn to her, and their jaws drop like unhinged doors: Sophia, her face filmed with sweat, holding a dildo in one hand and a torn piece of paper in the other.

Principal Yasuhiro is the first to regain his bearings: "May I help you, Miss Masterson?"

Sophia's on the verge of tears. There's a million things in her head, and they're all trying to come out of her mouth at the same time.

Mr. Pope clears his throat. Carol says, "Oh, Sophia, I haven't yet mentioned them that thing about the bulletin board."

"What thing?" Mrs. Reyes's double-chin quivers. "Did something happen?"

Wordlessly, Sophia drops what she's holding on Principal Yasuhiro's table. They all gape upon seeing the big dildo. Mrs. Reyes pokes the dildo with her finger, as if it were a dead fish, and mutters, "Oh." She turns it on its side without lifting it off the table. They read the words scribbled on it. "Oh, it's yours, Sophia" they all mutter at the same time—the moment it escapes their mouths they instantly realize the comical absurdity of it.

Sophia chokes on her words. "It's not mine. And that photo—" she turns her defaced photo up—"that's what I found on the bulletin board. I don't know who did this, but I'm sure as hell I didn't do anything to deserve this."

Principal Yasuhiro, the epitome of calmness, gently strokes his beard as he examines the exhibit on the table. "This is an attack on the faculty."

The men gravely nod in assent. But Carol rolls her eyes and says, "How is it an attack against all the teachers? Clearly, whoever did this is only targeting Sophia."

"A gesture of disrespect addressed to any one of us," says Yasuhiro, an edge to his words, "affects everyone else. If a student could do this to a decent, upstanding member of the faculty like Miss Masterson, then it's a challenge to the rest of us."

"If only there's a way we could know who did this," Carol says, as she finds something very important in the stack of papers in her arms. "But there are other more urgent things to settle now. As we were discussing, half of our student athletes are not yet up to par." Carol takes her seat and looks expectantly at the others. Guy, Mr. Pope and Mrs. Reyes reluctantly sit down.

"Really, Carol?" Sophia is shaking. She slams her fist on the table. Guy, Mr. Pope and Mrs. Reyes are compelled to again stand up.

"Miss Masterson." Carol Smith's face is the poster image of condescension. "If there's anything we can do, then we'll do it." She picks up the dildo, examines it against the light, then tosses it back to the table. "But considering we have nothing, except these things that may very well be actually yours..."

Sophia snaps. "How dare you!" A brief flash of thought in Sophia's head: yanking Carol Smith's head from its neck and throwing the severed head out the window. But Guy and Mr. Pope and Mr. Yasuhiro have their hands on her—gentlemanly, of course—before she could act on impulse.

"Sophia," Guy Mendes says. "Let's calm down. Keep it together. We won't stop until we find out who did this."

Carol groans. "But what about the sports competi—"

Principal Yasuhiro shoots her with a look that says "Shut up!" He sighs deeply, like a doctor who's about to say, "I'm sorry, but your cancer of the testicles is incredibly malignant, it's melting your gonads now as we speak." He gazes out the window. "There are a few things we have to learn about this situation." He turns around. "The first is how to make sense of that dildo ending up in Sophia's possession."

The room falls silent. Mr. Pope fidgets, while Mrs. Reyes finds something very wrong with her fingernails, and seems so focused on correcting it. But then there's a knock on the door. All heads swing around. It's Brad Silverstone, smiling that million-dollar smile like he has just saved the day. "There is actually something we can do." He holds up a mobile phone as it starts ringing. "I'm calling up the one person on this planet who can help us."