Sell Some Lives

Inequality

"So you'll be given a timetable, Tali,' One of the other teachers said, handing me a diagram on a piece of paper. "I'd also like you to do an assessment test so we can sort out which year group to put you in.'

"A what? Sorry, I've never been to school before."

"Just do your best and you'll get there. Here's your test. Come with me so we can find a spare room." She took me to an empty classroom with twenty desks and a blackboard split twice in the middle in three squares. 

I sat in the middle row, and then the door slammed and I was alone with my test. 

I flipped through it. It was full of meaningless geometry, arithmetic and infinitesimal calculus. I skipped all of those because they weren't anything to do with me. 

There was a lot about Greek and Latin. I could do some of the Latin because Mr Buscarino had taught me a little. Infantem et casserolum coxi cum lycopersico, piper, cepa, caseo et ovo, cum pater tuus ad manducandum venit. Nunc interdum cocta taedet, was an especially difficult text though. 

Some of the general intelligence questions were interesting, and I really liked solving codes. One of the codes made me really think after I decoded it.

Fbsojoh sftqfdu nblft zpvs mjgf tmjhiumz fbtjfs, cvu voujm xf bdijfwf frvbmjuz, xibu epft uibu nbuufs? It meant Earning respect makes your life slightly easier, but until we achieve equality, what does that matter?

Mr Buscarino said he sometimes wondered why he ever came out as transsexual, when his life was easier when he was forced to be a woman. But then he changed his mind halfway through the evening and said it was terrible to be a woman as so many women were c.onsidered their husband's property.

"Women are just housewives and mothers, pushing out kid after kid and having to put up with bullshit. I hardly think anything will ever change to be honest, Tali. You'll see in fifty years it will be the same as it is now, in a hundred, in a thousand... in a million. At least we won't be alive by then, eh?"

I was scared to think my life would be like that if I didn't do something about it. Perhaps it was just as well I'd had the abortion. Maybe even Eliot would have had the same mentality as everyone else and treated me like a baby factory. But no Eliot hadn't been like that. He'd gotten so angry whenever he told me about the way his dad treated his mama. "They don' care for them like people. My father hits my mama so much. He fractured her jaw once when she was screaming during labor, with my seventh brother and tried to rape her in the middle of pushing out the baby. So I bit him and he pulled my ear off which is why it now looks like this." His ear was almost completely gone except for some strange lumps here and there. He used to get phantom pain from it.

"Time's up, Taleah!"

I'd been daydreaming so much I hadn't heard Mrs Guillaume coming back in. She stood grinning with her hand forward.

"Let's see how you've done! Oops. I see a little mistake already. And here too. And another one! Shame you won't be put in a good year group Tillydums."

My horrified face made her shake her head sadly.

"Of course I could fix those little mistakes for you... I only ask for a teeny favour."

"What's that? I don't have money."

"MONEY?!!? How could you think I'd ever ask money from an innocent child?!" 

"So then... what?"

"Oh just a little lécher le trou du vagin." She smirked.

I didn't know what she was saying but I nodded because I really didn't want to let Mr Buscarino down. 

"Is that a yes?" She clapped her plump hands together like a child.

"Yes... alright."

"Parfait, merci. Come over here. My feet are killing me." She groaned, hopping onto the teacher's desk.

I wondered if she wanted a massage. 

But then she started tearing off her clothes, layers of ugly grey wool sweaters and a long dirndl skirt and a whale bone corset that revealed deep rolls and red skin underneath. 

"W-what are you doing?!" I screamed, taking a step back.

She frowned at me.

"Shut up or someone will hear! Do you want other kids to get your present instead of you? You might get kicked out of this school.. not even might." She growled.

I walked up to her, taking a deep breath.

She took my left hand with her cold right one. She tugged it hard between her bare legs.

"I'll tell you what to do. Use your fingers and rub me right... here." She went on talking, saying complicated things about technique and exploration and finding yourself.

When it was finally over she told me to stop because I didn't really know when and just kept going. 

"We'll do this again tomorrow Tali Wally. Mwah!" She kissed me on the lips, harder than anyone ever had before, forcing her wet tongue inside. It tasted of clootie dumplings. 

I tried not to shudder in disgust as she took a new sheet and started filling in the correct answers with her left hand, in approximation of a child's handwriting. 

I kept reminding myself it was for the best, but I still couldn't help feeling queasy.