Used in class

School was so boring. I made decent grades and all, but I never really tried that hard. I just daydreamed all the time. I promise I think I was daydreaming for 85 to 90 percent of the day. Being young there was no limit to where my brain would go.

“Alright Class!” our teacher Mr Batelli said in a commanding voice as he walked in.

He was about 6 foot 4 with Dark hair that was parted, and the sides kept short. He had olive skin because I am pretty sure that he was Italian. His gray eyes were something that would catch me off guard whenever I was able to look into them. He was a fit man that always had clothes that accentuated his physique. Today was a gray collared shirt that was not tucked in but lay right at his belt line. He had a brown belt with black slacks. And his shoes were brown and a little pointy at the end. They were shiny and had hard soles so you could hear him walking around the room.

“Is everyone here?” he asked as he scanned the room. Mr Batelli now just asked us ‘is everyone here’ when he walked in and it was our responsibility to tell him. One time, he asked and we all said yes. He scanned the room and saw that someone was missing, and he lost it. He was intimidating. Mr Batelli was ex-military and he took role call very seriously. So now a days we do not say yes unless we were absolutely sure that everyone was there.

“Yes Mr Batelli.” We all said in unison.

He completed his scan and sat down at his desk.

“Ok………. Who remembers what we were going to do today?” He says as he is looking down at the lesson plan.

“Sex Education.” We all drone together trying to stifle our laughs.

“That’s right. Sex Education.” He said with a bit of a grumble in his voice. “The way they have this all set up is horrible. It doesn’t teach you anything that you don’t already know. I wish I could set up a lesson for this myself that was a little more educational.” He finished his sentence and bounced his palm off the desk twice and stood up.

The way he moved was always just mesmerizing to me. You could hear his hard-soled shoes walking around the room, but he seemed like he just floated from place to place. He shoulders broad and commanding your attention, and his large hands would be at his side or tucked into his belt. He was just a symbol of authority in every way.

“I have thought about this long and hard….” He pauses and lets out an irritated breath as we snicker a little. “There are a few ways that we can do this. I think what I am going to do is bring out the ole skeleton and use it as a model of sorts.”

Once the skeleton is out in the middle of the room. He begins the lesson. He starts with pointing at the skeleton’s hips and talking about the vagina and ovaries. There is no shortage of giggling throughout everything that he was covering. He would just look at the ground when the giggling got to loud. We would all quiet down quickly and then he would continue.

This probably went on for about 10 to 15 minutes before he just stood up and pushed the skeleton across the room. It crashed against the wall knocking some things down. We all moved our heads from the noise back to Mr Batelli and he stood in the middle of the class with his arms crossed and feet shoulder width apart staring at none of us and all of us at the same time. You could have heard a pen drop because of the scary silence in the room.

The focus that he had in his eyes was palpable. I could not take my eyes off him.

“So, this is funny to everyone?” He said as he moved his eyes to each of us.

“No sir.” I said thinking that everyone was going to say it together, but I was the only one that spoke.

I sank in my chair so embarrassed I could have died at that moment and been ok with it. So of course, his eyes and everyone else’s turned to me.

“Well if it wasn’t funny then why were you laughing, Lena?” He said to me in a stern voice.

“I…… I…… I’m sorry sir.” I said as I sank deeper into my chair.

“Do you think you can teach it better than me?”

“No sir.”

“Come down here Lena.” He said to me as he pointed to the floor beside him.

I didn’t want to go but my body just started doing as it was told. I knew that I had no choice, but it seemed that my motor functions were being operated by something inside me. When I turned around each and every student was looking at me. Not a smile on a single face remained. I couldn’t look at them anymore, so I just turned my head and looked at Mr Batelli. His eyes were intense as he looked down at me. I lowered my head but didn’t take my eyes off his. The silence was killing me.

“Everyone, say thank you to Lena for being our living model today.” He said as he clapped his hands.

“Thank you, Lena.” Everyone said in unison as they also clapped.

WHAT!?!?! I could not quite wrap my mind around what I just heard. A living model? What does that mean? and I didn’t volunteer for anything. I wanted to run away, I wanted to disappear, I wanted to die in that moment.

As the clapping stopped Mr Batelli said, “Today we are going to talk about the female body, and what you need to know for sex education.” He said as he pointed at me. “Go ahead and take off your sweatshirt Lena.” He said as he walked around the desk.

I was not sure if I heard what he said correctly so I did not move at all. I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what I thought I heard. There was no way that I was going to take my shirt off in front of everyone in class. Who would tell someone to do that? How is that ok? Why has no one else said anything? Everyone just sat there staring at me as I was trying to decipher what was going on.

“Lena, did you hear me?” He said in a very matter of fact voice.

“I…. I’m not sure sir.” I said hoping to hear something else come out of his mouth.

“Take off your shirt and lay it on my desk.” Without question the words came out of his mouth.

No one responded at all as if this was normal. I could not quite believe what was going on. The silence in the room was too much for me to take and it made me feel as though I was in the wrong. Without being able to explain why I did it I reached down and grabbed the bottom of my sweatshirt and pulled it up above me head.